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Rosie by Paddy Breathnach[/caption]
The Irish Film Festival London hosted the 2018 awards ceremony in celebration of Irish Film, honoring the Dublin-set drama
Rosie with the award Best Feature Film and
The Lonely Battle of Thomas Reid with the award for Best Documentary Feature.
Each November, in the lead up to the Irish Film Festival London, which takes place from 21st November to 25th November, IFL hosts an awards ceremony in celebration of Irish Film. These awards highlight and reward the talents of a select number of Irish film makers, whose work has shown great distinction, originality and passion.
2018 Irish Film Festival London Awards
Best Short Film
The Nominees
Lint – 3 mins 15 secs / Dir: Lisa O’Sullivan
Exploring the strange limbo state that we experience in the aftermath of a break up, Lint follows one person’s bizarre attempt at regaining some sense of normality.
Winner: Early Days – 12 mins / Dir: Nessa Wrafter
Though Kate knows she’s lucky to have become a mother, and her instincts toward her baby are fiercely protective, post-natal trauma and hallucinations make the world increasingly hard to bear. Can anything pull her back to reality – before it’s too late?
Wren Boys – 11 mins / Dir: Harry Lighton
On the day after Christmas, a Catholic priest from Cork drives his nephew to prison. Starring Lalor Roddy, Diarmuid Noyes and Fionn Walton.
Best Documentary
The Nominees
Under the Clock -2018 / Documentary / 76 mins / Dir: Colm Nicell / Ire (U)
This film tells the life-affirming stories of a generation of people whose relationships began under one of Ireland’s most iconic landmarks, Clerys clock. Be taken back in time to the days of the Dublin dance halls, courting, sneaking out to meet a fella, and the heart-racing times spent waiting, not knowing if they would turn up.
Poc na nGael – 2017 / Documentary / 50 mins / Dir: Éamonn Ó Cualáin / Ire, (PG), Irish with English subtitles
Starring: Ger Loughnane, Brendan Shanahan, Geraldine Heaney
Irish hurling legend Ger Loughnane is on a mission to discover the Irish connections to ice hockey in Canada. He reveals how the Irish emigrants who settled there over 200 years ago, created the sport and played a key role in developing the game from its inception on a frozen pond in Nova Scotia to the modern arenas of today’s official championships. This is a poignant exploration of the incredible contribution of Irish immigrants in creating and developing a sport that went on to help define the new nation of Canada.
Winner : The Lonely Battle of Thomas Reid: 2018 / Documentary / 85 mins / Dir: Feargal Ward / Ire (12A)
For years, the farmer Thomas Reid has been locked in a grueling battle with his neighbour, U.S. microchip manufacturer Intel. The multinational wants to expand and has its eye on Reid’s land. Eager to boost employment in the region, the Irish authorities are doing their utmost to force Reid into a sale. But the farmer has no intention of leaving his 300-year-old ancestral home, where he lives alone, surrounded by cows and chickens. Feargal Ward’s documentary shows this tenacious eccentric to be a formidable opponent of the system.
Best Feature Film
The Nominees
Winner: Rosie – 2018 / Drama / 86 mins / Dir: Paddy Breathnach / Ire (15)
Starring: Sarah Greene, Moe Dunford, Fiona Ashe, Lochlann O’Mearain, Toni O’Rourke
Irish writer Roddy Doyle was compelled back to script-writing for this Dublin-set drama, which tells a story, inspired by too many true stories in modern Ireland, of Rosie, a devoted mother of four, over a period of 36 hours as she and her partner, John Paul, and their family tries to cope with unexpected homelessness.
Grace and Goliath – 2018 / Family drama, comedy / 93 mins / Dir: Tony Mitchell / Ire (PG)
Starring: Emy Aneke, Savanna Burney Keatings, Jo Donnelly, Ciarán McMenamin, Olivia Nash
A Hollywood big shot, Josh Jenkins (Emy Aneke), sweeps into Belfast to make a movie, but before long, his world crashes and he loses everything. Lily (Olivia Nash), a hotel cleaner, invites him to stay with her crazy family and gradually the people of this ‘strange’ city manage to touch his heart. A powerful story of how one man’s Goliath ego is brought down by one single dose…of Grace.
The Little Stranger – 2018 / Drama, thriller / 111 mins / Dir: Lenny Abrahamson / Ire (12A) Starring: Domhnall Gleeson, Ruth Wilson, Will Poulter, Charlotte Rampling
After a doctor is called to visit a crumbling manor, strange things begin to occur. The Little Stranger tells the story of Dr. Faraday (Domhnall Gleeson), the son of a housemaid, who has built a life of quiet respectability as a country doctor. During the long, hot summer of 1948, he is called to see a patient at Hundreds Hall, where his mother once worked. The Hall has been home to the Ayres family for more than two centuries, but now it is in decline and its inhabitants – mother, son and daughter – are haunted by something more ominous than a dying way of life. When he takes on his new patient, Faraday has no idea how closely, and how disturbingly, the family’s story is about to become entwined with his own.
Best Irish Music Video Award
The nominees
1/ Villagers – Fool – Director: Bob Gallagher
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI46nPj_1Eo
2/ Kodaline – Head Held High – Director: James Fitzgerald
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jje2x1HP0c
3/ Daithí (feat The Sei) – In My Darkest Moments – Director: Lochlainn McKenna
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yymDRYx5JwM
4/
Winner: Pillow Queens – Favourite – Director: Bob Gallagher
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyLuM7rIBsI
5/ Roisín Murphy (feat Ali Love) – Jacuzzi Rollercoaster – Director Roisín Murphy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmB80LrNXVI
6/ Jafaris – Found My Feet – Directors: Nathan Barlow & Stephanie Naughter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j83M-EDduOM
7/ Hot Cops – Decay – Director: Aaron Eccles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt-TVLH4I2o
Suil Eile Award
Under the Clock, received by director Colm Nicell.
This film tells the life-affirming stories of a generation of people whose relationships began under one of Ireland’s most iconic landmarks, Clerys clock. Be taken back in time to the days of the Dublin dance halls, courting, sneaking out to meet a fella, and the heart-racing times spent waiting, not knowing if they would turn up…
Ros Hubbard Award for Acting: Sarah Greene. The award was received by director Paddy Breathnach on behalf of actor Sarah Greene.
The Festival Founder, Kelly O’Connor said, “It’s great to have so many of the filmmakers in attendance at the awards this year. It’s such a unique networking opportunity, rubbing shoulders with programmers from all the main exhibitors in London, not to mention producers, commissioners and international acting talent too.
The Irish Embassy did a superb job of hosting us, and we are exceptionally lucky to have such a progressive and supportive Ambassador here in London to champion events like this as part of their busy schedule.”
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Smithy and Dickie[/caption]
Back for its 8th year, the Irish Film Festival London with Colin Farrell as its latest patron, presents Ireland’s latest mainstream and independent films over 5 days across London.
IFFL 2018 opens on a romantic note with Smithy & Dickie, Hannah Quinn’s delightful short about Irish 1940’s love letters, followed by Under the Clock, directed by Colm Nicell, which tells the enchanting stories of a generation of people whose relationships began under one of Ireland’s most iconic landmarks, Clerys clock.
The closing film is We Ourselves starring Aidan Gillen, Catherine Walker, Declan Conlon, Paul Reid, Seána Kerslake, Gavin Drea, and Caitríona Ennis. Paul Mercier’s second feature is an intimate and intense journey into the minds and hearts of a group of idealists and careerists as they go their separate paths in life, though are still bound together through a shared experience, a shared culture and a shared nation.
Irish Film London Patron and Academy Award-winning director Lenny Abrahamson returns to London for the festival, providing a pre-festival teaser with an appearance on Mark Kermode Live in 3D at the BFI (MK3D) on Monday 19th November. He then joins his long-term musical collaborator Stephen Rennicks for a talk on music and sound in their films (Sounds Guys, Thurs 22nd November), which will be followed by a screening of his latest film The Little Stranger, starring Domhnall Gleeson and Ruth Wilson.
IFFL 2018 has plenty for the curious mind, with documentaries including Poc na Gael, in which Irish sporting legend Ger Loughnane traces the origins of Canadian ice-hockey all the way back to the Irish emigrant hurlers, and celebrates their legacy across the country today, and The Lonely Battle of Thomas Reid, (screening at Bertha Dochouse), in which a small Irish farmer goes head to head with US microchip Manufacturer Intel in a land battle.
Part of Irish Film London’s mission is to support Irish filmmakers from the beginning of their careers, and this year’s line-up includes two programmes of Irish Short Films (Thursday 22nd & Friday 23rd November), full of up and coming Irish filmmaking talent. There will also be a panel discussion aimed at shorts filmmakers at The Union Soho as part of the festival, which reflects on the challenges and rewards of developing from shorts to feature films.
For family audiences, the heart-waring Grace and Goliath, from Cinemagic and Tony Mitchell, screens on Saturday 24th November at 2pm, in which an arrogant Hollywood big shot, Josh Jenkins sweeps into Belfast to make a movie, but before long he finds he needs the help of the very people he’s been overlooking.
As always, the festival’s Friday night film will be a special preview screening, from one of Ireland’s rising star directors, with details available only via the festival brochure or newsletter.
A duo of films highlighting the current Irish homelessness crisis screen on Saturday 24th November. Shelter Me: Apollo House, produced by Jim Sheridan, follows the world-renowned director, and a motley crew of inadvertent activists including Glen Hansard, Hozier, Damien Dempsey and Dean Scurry who were involved in the takeover of NAMA building Apollo House over the Christmas of 2016 to house Dublin’s homeless. It is followed by Rosie, a poignant moment in the life of a family displaced, with a show stopping performance by Sarah Greene. The creation of Roddy Doyle and Paddy Breathnach, two of Ireland’s leading storytellers, Rosie is ‘inspired by too many true stories.’
In keeping with the political times, IFFL 2018’s Sunday 25th November includes an afternoon focused on Northern Ireland, and the tensions arising around the border. Brexit: The Border Issue comprises a collection of short films on the topic, including the Financial Times’ recently commissioned Hard Border from Juliet Riddell and Clare Dwyer-Hogg which opens with Stephen Rea’s “Jacob Rees-Mogg you’re right. You don’t need to visit the border… you need to have lived here.” Later that day Tom Collins’ bi-lingual drama Penance reveals just what living in Derry felt like through the twentieth century, as a 1916 firebrand preacher priest later faces his demons during the 1960s era of The Troubles.
In the first collaboration of its kind, IFFL 2018 includes a joint event with the UK Jewish Film Festival, the Irish Film Institute, and the Barbican, with The Cohens and the Kellys, an uproariously funny 1926 silent film based in New York’s poorer quarters, accompanied by a live quartet of award-winning Irish and Jewish musicians.