DIFF 2009 Programme

Finding favourite films Thurs 12 Feb – Sun 22 Feb 2009 www.jdiff.com

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Welcome to THE 7TH JAMESON

DUBLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Contents

Galas

Supporters

2

Out of the Past

26

Opening Gala

43

Forewords & Introductions

5

My Favourite Film

27

French Gala

57

Schedule

14

Outreach Programme

29

Dundrum Gala

65

Booking Information

17

Irish Film Board Shorts

31

Italian Gala

73

Chantal Akerman

18

Parallel Events

32

Special Archive Event

91

Turkish Cinema Season

21

Irish Talent Spotlight

36

Five Minutes of Heaven

93

Irish Cinema

22

Awards

37

Surprise Film

101

French Cinema

23

JDIFF Volunteers

39

Closing Gala

103

Real to Reel

25

Friends of the Festival

41

Dates

Venues

Box Offices

Thursday 12 February – Sunday 22 February 2009

Cineworld, Parnell Street, Dublin 1

Filmbase, Curved Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2

Irish Film Institute, Eustace Street, Dublin 2

Contact Details Tel: 01 662 4260 Email: info@jdiff.com www.jdiff.com

Light House Cinema, Smithfield Market, Dublin 7

Cineworld, Parnell Street, Dublin 1 Telephone Booking: 01 672 8861 Online Booking: www.jdiff.com

Movies@Dundrum, Dundrum Town Centre, Dublin 14 Savoy Cinema, O’Connell Street, Dublin 1 Screen, D’Olier Street, Dublin 2

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 1

The Jameson Dublin International Film Festival is proudly supported by: Title Sponsor:

Funders:

Official Print Media Partner:

Official Venue Partner:

Official Hotel Partner:

Official Website Partner:

Official Airline Sponsor:

Official Wheels:

Official Online Partner:

Official Post Production Partner:

Audience Award & My Favourite Film Partner:

2 • Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009

Official Radio Sponsor:

Also supported by:

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 3

Finding new favourite films

To upload your favourite film log on to www.jdiff.com or www.screenclick.com

joe vaněk black narcissus

P.J. Ryan The Da Vinci Code

caroline o’reilly chung king express

Karl Watson Spirited Away

stephanie karamanolis this is spinal tap

Ian Graham Once Upon A Time In The West

katrei heikkilä casablanca

Brian Cronly DR. strangelove

Graham Bolger Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain

bríd ní ghruagáin kinD hearts AND coronets

laura mcgovern eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

A. McElroy The Passion of the Christ

fergal cummins the game

wendy gajadhar the sound of music

mark Donaghue talk to her

charles laffiteau Henry V (1989)

sven bikind fightclub

Mary-Jo Murphy Lost in Translation

gavin byrne chinatown

Joanne O’hagan dangerous liaisons

darragh doyle la vita é bella

emily gotto Cleo de 5 á 7

Anthony Hind Man Bites Dog

anne-marie lyons the life of brian

kirsten nielsen u23d

shawn day bottle rocket

Graham Mitchell American Gangster

OWEN Mcguinness Gallipoli

Lisa Thelen Der Krieger und die Kaiserin

richard healy switchblade romance

wendy lee foon legends of the fall

mícheál morrissey RAGING BULL

markus edin the shining

Chadrul Wora kuch kuch hota hai

niall lynch midnight cowboy

claire mchugh some like it hot

graham turley the van

Julia Capulett The sixth Sense

Michael Dwyer BONNIE AND CLYDE

elizabeth o’gorman il postino

John Troy Starsky and Hutch

marta maciejewska stealing beaUty

paul markey a room with a view

Paul kelly Cool Hand Luke

Catherine Higgins ANNIE HALL

barry glynn singin’ in the rain

markus wohlfeil saved

Ed Hick Birdy

Sarah heery magnolia

gareth nee fight club

sarah smyth It happened One Night

Colm Ryder my favourite year

Felix Cropp Blues Brothers

susie keeling the godfather

ivan mccarthy A NIGHT AT THE OPERA

Ana Segura la vita é bella

4 • Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009

Director’s Foreword Gráinne Humphreys, Director, Jameson Dublin International Film Festival Welcome to the 7th Jameson Dublin International Film Festival For the last couple of months, a particular film scene has played in my head on a loop.

A depressed comedy writer stumbles in a daze around New York until by chance he walks into a rep cinema on the upper west side. He goes to the balcony and starts to watch the classic Marx Brothers film Duck Soup, the scene is the chaotic dance scene with all the brothers clowning around and suddenly he starts to forget his troubles, transfixed by the comedy onscreen. It is of course, a crucial scene from the sublime Woody Allen film Hannah and Her Sisters and I reference it to highlight one of the most important aspect of cinema – its ability to transport us into another world, away from the mundane pressures of the everyday into another world. For all of us, cinema has acted as a portal into a million different stories; it has recreated the past, predicted the future and provided a perceptive mirror of the present. If only it was available on prescription!

It is my greatest hope that this years programme will transfix audiences during the eleven days of our festival. It has been a recurrent thought over the last 12

months, as to what gives more enjoyment - the excitement of watching a new film or the nostaligic pleasure of watching an old favourite. As I look across the range of titles in the programme and try to describe it, it’s a passionate list of criteria, but I think we have all elements covered.

In this year’s programme we celebrate the diversity of European Cinema and have been lucky enough to entice some of the best European filmmakers of our time to Dublin. I encourage you to savour the masterpieces of Paolo Sorrentino, Laurent Cantet and Jan Troell whose films we present as Gala Screenings.

In 2009, we focus on the incredible new work from Turkey, surprisingly this season will be a first in Ireland and I would specially note the inclusion of the new film from Reza Erhan - Our Only Sunshine, one the most original voices in world cinema.

Alongside feature films, the documentary form has confounded its critics and we showcase a wonderful selection of the best of international docs, and not a Michael Moore film in sight! This increased section revels in the scope of the films involved: we move from American wrestling to portraits

of living legends such as Liam Clancy and fashion designer Valentino, and then from the Lebanon to Sydney to the rock fan fantasy that is Anvil.

None of the films I have mentioned will exist if the film archives of the world are not celebrated and cherished. This year with the assistance of the World Cinema Foundation and the Out of the Past programme, we showcase a number of films which, without the passion of film archives and industry figures such as Martin Scorsese and festival guest Thierry Fremaux, would not exist. It is a genuine pleasure to welcome the Director of Cannes Film Festival to Dublin to discuss his festival, and to introduce one of our key archive screenings – the classic Korean film The Housemaid.

Our festival this year is book-ended by two very special and widely different films; our Opening Film – John Patrick Shanley’s superb film Doubt will have Dublin audiences debating for days, while our Closing Presentation is the Irish premiére of Tomm Moore’s The Secret of Kells, the outstanding new film from the award-winning Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon.

I would like to acknowledge the enormous contribution of my wonderful colleagues in putting this festival together. Thanks to the long list of film distributors and filmmakers whose work we present, we couldn’t do it with you.

Enjoy.

Gráinne Humphreys Festival Director

JDIFF 08, Daniel Day-Lewis and Todd McCarthy, There Will Be Blood.

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 5

Who we are and what we do

The Arts Council is the Irish Government agency for funding and developing the arts. With the money we receive through the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism, we provide financial assistance to artists, arts organisations, local authorities and others for artistic purposes. As an advocate for the arts and artists, we undertake projects and research, often in new and emerging areas of practice.

70 Merrion Square, Dublin 2, Ireland

70 Cearnóg Mhuirfean, Baile Átha Cliath 2, Éire

t +353 1 6180200 f +353 1 6761302

e info@artscouncil.ie w www.artscouncil.ie

CEO’s Foreword Joanne O’Hagan, Chief Executive Officer, Jameson Dublin International Film Festival As we all know, the last few months have been challenging for everyone. However, I am glad to say, that the 2009 Jameson Dublin International Film Festival offers incredible value for money as we continue to present to you Ireland’s best film festival. If you are looking for fantastic value, a wonderful scope for debate, laughter, tears and personal fulfilment, there is nowhere better than the darkened hallows of the cinema auditorium during the JDIFF. In Dublin, we have the good fortune of having one of the largest and most dedicated cinema-going audiences in the world, and I hope that this year’s festival programme will appeal to our growing audience. We are all here because we love cinema. This year, we are asking you, our audience, to tell us what your favourite film is. Log on to our website www.jdiff.com and tell us. We hope that you will discover a new favourite film at this year’s festival!

The Jameson Dublin International Film Festival is funded by both private and

public sector partners. The loyalty of our partners has been very welcome in the last few months, and I am delighted to say that Jameson, who are partners with the festival since 2003 have committed to supporting the festival until 2012, making the association with both DIFF and Jameson, one of the longest and most successful partnerships in the arts community. Of our public funders, both the Arts Council and The Irish Film Board deserve special mention for their continued support in what are increasingly difficult times. We are delighted to work with both organisations in true partnership and both The Arts Council and The Irish Film Board have a fundamental role in supporting our artistic programme and assist the festival as we develop and grow for the future.

The future is difficult to predict, and we rely on you, our audience, to ensure that the festival is a success – tell your friends to become a ‘friend’, try to come to as many films as possible, tell everyone about the hidden gems, experiment with your taste,

push yourself to see something different, become part of the festival experience.

I would sincerely like to thank all our partners and supporters: Fáilte Ireland, Media, Culture Ireland, Dublin City Council, The Ticket, Cineworld, McConnells Advertising, Turkish Airlines, Windmill Lane Post-Production, The Conrad Hotel, Mini, Carlton Screen Advertising, Entertainment.ie, ScreenClick.com, Movies. ie, Ron Blacks, Café Sol, Cine Electric, RTÉ, Ticketsolve, Spotlight, IFTN, FM104 and all the embassies and cultural institutions that have supported the festival this year.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank our chairman and board of directors, our wonderful festival staff and all our hard-working volunteers who ensure that we present a world-class festival to you. I would like to especially thank my colleagues, the core festival team who work tirelessly throughout the year – Gráinne Humphreys, Sarah Smyth and Miriam McLoughlin – ladies, take a bow!

Lastly, I would like to thank you, our audience, some of you who have supported us over the years, some who are new to the festival – thank you for coming, tell your friends and we hope to see you during the festival. Enjoy the films!

Joanne O’Hagan, Chief Executive Officer Jameson Dublin International Film Festival

JDIFF 08, U2 and Catherine Owens at European Premiere of U2 3D. Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 7

Chairman’s Welcome Michael Dwyer, Chairman Jameson Dublin International Film Festival Film speaks a universal language, with or without sub-titles.

The Jameson Dublin International Film Festival takes place at the year’s peak period for celebrating movies all over the world, as national and international awards ceremonies honour the finest achievements in cinema, before and behind the camera.

And within hours of the curtain going down on our closing film on February 22nd, the annual Oscars ceremony in Hollywood will bring the awards season to a close for another year.

This festival serves a vital function in presenting filmgoers from Dublin and all over Ireland with an annual opportunity to discover and savour world cinema on a vast scale and in the unique shared experience of a cinema - which continues to transcend home viewing regardless of how large one’s new HD plasma screen is, or how hi-tech one’s sound system is.

The event has been designed for people who love movies – the festival audience, from the hardcore season ticket holders who will take holiday time to immerse themselves in the event, to the more casual cinemagoers who will purchase maybe a couple of tickets for high-profile presentations and then will be tempted to take a chance on some less well-known films that attract – and deserve - their attention.

The festival was formed with the stated commitment to celebrate world cinema in all its forms and to transcend the experience of a visit to the cinema by bringing as many Irish and international guests to discuss their films with the audience after the screenings.

Such are the vagaries of distribution and exhibition, and such is the increasing dominance of mainstream movies, that many of the fine films showing in the festival never again will be seen on an Irish cinema screen.

The Jameson Dublin International Film Festival director, Gráinne Humphreys, has worked tirelessly and assiduously to assemble the exciting, wonderfully diverse programme of films that awaits you over 11 days in February. Her exciting selection of movies bears testimony to her passion for cinema and her flair for programming.

Joining Gráinne in the front line are chief executive Joanne O’Hagan and festival manager Sarah Smyth, who bring a great deal of expertise to co-ordinating all the many complicated logistics involved in making this festival the very special event it is. They lead a remarkable team of parttime staff and volunteers whose dedication and enthusiasm is greatly appreciated.

This festival could not have happened – and grown on such a scale – without the invaluable support of Jameson Irish Whiskey, the event’s title sponsor from the beginning. Happily, Jameson continues to provide the vital backing that secures the existence and continued development of the festival.

On behalf of the board of directors, thanks to Jameson, to The Arts Council and the Irish Film Board, and to all the festival’s sponsors. And I gratefully acknowledge all the time, energy and commitment so generously given by the members of the festival board.

Welcome to JDIFF 2009.

Michael Dwyer Chairman.

JDIFF 08, Opening Night Gala - In Bruges.

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 9

The Minister’s Welcome Martin Cullen TD Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism.

I am pleased as the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, with responsibility for film, to write an introduction to the 2009 Jameson Dublin International Film Festival.

The festival has come to be regarded as an important event by bringing together film-makers, actors, producers and other celebrities from Ireland and around the world.

The Jameson Dublin International Film Festival was established in 2003 and has gone from strength to strength over the last seven years. The festival was established to present an opportunity for Dublin’s cinema-going audiences to experience the best in Irish and International Cinema.

Central to the success of the festival is the high level of audiences the festival attracts, demonstrating a large appetite for less mainstream film content in the capital.

The festival is funded by the Arts Council, the Irish Film Board (IFB) and Dublin City Council. The IFB supports the festival as an industry partner and the focus of the IFB at the festival is the promotion of Irish films and documentaries, Irish talent, creativity and to provide opportunities for international industry guests to discover new Irish cinema.

2008 was a year of significant progress with the festival team building on the successes of previous years and introducing new initiatives such as a significant Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (Ireland) International Screen Writing Award, Write Here, Write Now, the winner of which will be announced at the 2009 festival.

A number of films which screened at the festival in 2008 went on to international success including In Bruges, U23D and There Will Be Blood. Last year’s festival closed with the premiere of the Irish film Eden, attended by writer Eugene O’Brien, director Declan Recks, and cast members Aidan Kelly and Eileen Walsh which went on to win the Best Actress Award for Eileen Walsh at the Tribeca Film Festival.

That award, when considered with other major awards won in 2008 - the Camera D’Or Award at Cannes for Hunger, and of course the Oscar for Once - gives great encouragement to Irish film and Irish film makers. The film making industry in Ireland has never been stronger in terms of international acclaim, the challenge is to build on those successes and the Government is committed to doing that with continued financial support for

the Irish Film Board and through other incentives such as Section 481 – that was recently extended and enhanced.

Finally, I would like to wish Gráinne and her colleagues involved in putting together this year’s festival every success.

Martin Cullen TD Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism.

JDIFF 08, Savoy Cinema.

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 11

www.mcconnells.ie

Jameson Introduction Alexandre Ricard, CEO, Irish Distillers Pernod Ricard We are extremely proud to be celebrating the 7th Jameson Dublin International Film Festival. Proud because Dublin is the home of Jameson, and proud because this partnership has gone from strength to strength. We believe that this year’s festival will be bigger and better than ever.

This year we have once again developed an intensive marketing campaign to promote our partnership with the festival. It will consist of TV, print and outdoor advertising, film promotions in bars and off-licences around Dublin, a competition for all film fans and an experiential event celebrating the graphic novel adaptation genre of movies.

The past 12 months have been very exciting for Jameson as the brand continues to grow, and as more and more people, from all corners of the world, discover the great taste of Jameson whiskey.

We look forward to a successful 2009 festival and invite you to join us for a drink at one of the after show parties and discover the great taste of Jameson for yourselves!

We are continuing to focus a significant part of our promotional activity on film and Jameson is now involved in the sponsorship of film festivals & award ceremonies in over 20 countries around the world. In the last year, we have added title sponsorship of the Empire Awards to the list of other major international events we have an involvement with.

Alexandre Ricard, CEO, Irish Distillers Pernod Ricard

The Arts Council Introduction Mary Cloake, Director The Arts Council The Arts Council is delighted to support the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival.

Now in its seventh year, the festival has become a firm and eagerly awaited fixture in Dublin’s cultural calendar. It shines like a beacon over 11 days and nights in February bringing a range of the best in contemporary feature, documentary and short films from Ireland and around the world to Dublin audiences for the first and, sometimes, only time.

The programme put together by Gráinne Humphreys for the 2009 festival is imaginative, ambitious and exciting. It will entice us to take a range of cinematic journeys: from Three Miles North of Molkom to Antartica and into the worlds of Turkish and Mexican cinema and beyond. Irish films will feature strongly throughout the festival with screenings including Tomm Moore’s animated feature, The Secret of Kells; Joe Lawlor’s and Christine Molloy’s Helen; and Alan Gilsenan’s he Yellow Bittern: The Life and Times of Liam Clancy. The festival will also host a very welcome fiftieth anniversary screening of George Morrison’s iconic Mise Éire in its

archive programme. A particularly significant strand of the festival in recent years has been its focus on film as art and, this year, it is a delight to see that audiences will be treated to a rare and special retrospective on, and interview with, the Belgian experimental film artist, Chantal Akerman.

A unique feature of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival is the imaginative approach it takes to reaching and embracing its audiences. This year, not only will the festival screen films at cinemas in central Dublin and Dundrum but, in a new departure, it will also host screenings of Irish films at the Coombe, Mater and St James’s hospitals. As always, the festival will not be limited to screening films but will also provide a platform for its audiences to engage with film artists about their work in a range of discussions and question and answer sessions. The festival will also endeavour to reach an ‘over 55’ audience with an engaging quiz to be hosted by Michael Dwyer in partnership with Dublin City Public Libraries.

For the first time, the new Light House Cinema in Smithfield will join with the IFI, Screen, Savoy, Cineworld and Movies@Dundrum to play host to the festival. Light House is an art house cinema whose development was supported by the Arts Council and the Irish Film Board. It occupies an inviting architectural space in the heart of Smithfield and promises a very special cinema experience to those who visit during the course of this year’s festival.

On behalf of the Arts Council, I would like to congratulate Joanne O’Hagan, Gráinne Humphreys, and their staff and volunteer team for bringing us the seventh JDIFF and wish them – and you! – an enjoyable and successful festival.

Mary Cloake Director, The Arts Council

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 13

Schedule

The film festival opens on Thursday 12 February with the Opening Gala, Doubt, at the Savoy at 8.30pm.

Friday 13 Feb

Saturday 14 Feb

Sunday 15 Feb

Monday 16 Feb

Tuesday 17 Feb

Three Colours Blue Screen 1 / 2.00pm

Flame & Citron Savoy 1 / 11.00am

Gran Torino Savoy 1 / 11.00am

My Life As A Dog Screen 1 / 2.00pm

Les Enfants du Paradis Screen 1 / 2.00pm

Jeanne Dielmann Screen 2 / 2.00pm

Revolution Cineworld 9 / 1.45pm

The Letter Never Sent Screen 1 / 2.00pm

This Is Your Life Screen 2 /2.00pm

Creative Chaos Cineworld 9 / 4.00pm

The Grocer’s Son Screen 1 / 2.00pm

Gitmek: My Marlon and Brando Screen 2 / 2.00pm

The Song of Sparrows Screen 1 / 4.30pm

The World is Big and Salvation Lies Around the Corner Screen 2 / 2.00pm

T. Fremaux Interview Light House / 4.00pm

Dot Screen 2 / 2.00pm

Of Parents and Children Screen 1 / 4.30pm

Flash of Genius Screen 2 / 4.00pm

Yuri’s Day Screen 2 / 6.00pm

Good Screen 1 / 4.30pm

In The Loop Cineworld 17 / 6.00pm

Pirate for The Sea Cineworld 9 / 4.40pm

Cloud 9 Cineworld 9 / 6.00pm

Cadillac Records Cineworld 17 / 6.00pm

The Housemaid IFI 1 / 6.30pm

Burn the Bridges Screen 2 / 6.20pm

Valentino Screen 1 / 6.50pm

Bronson Screen 1 / 6.30pm

American Teen Cineworld 9 / 8.00pm

3 Miles North of Molkom IFI 1 / 6.30pm

Black Sea Movies@Dundrum / 8.00pm Derek Cineworld 9 / 7.10pm Hush Screen 2 / 8.40pm O’Horten Screen 1 / 8.50pm Disgrace Cineworld 17 /8.50pm

Helen Screen 1 / 4.00pm From the East IFI 2 / 4.00pm Opera Screen 2 / 4.20pm Gigantic Cineworld 17 / 6.00pm Dogging: A Love Story Cineworld 9 / 6.00pm Havar Screen 1 / 6.10pm Bigger Stronger Faster* Screen 2 / 6.10pm Dry Summer IFI 1 / 6.30pm Everlasting Moments Cineworld 17 / 8.00pm

Coraline 3D Confessions of a Shopaholic Movies@Dundrum / Movies@Dundrum / 8.00pm 8.00pm The Class Cineworld 17 / 8.10pm

Scratch Light House / 8.30pm

The Song of Sparrows Screen 1 / 8.30pm

Eamon Cineworld 9 / 8.30pm

Cowards Screen 2 / 8.50pm

Black Sea Screen 1 / 8.30pm

I Sell The Dead Cineworld 9 / 9.00pm

Takva Screen 2 / 8.45pm

14 • Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009

Seamstresses Screen 2 / 6.00pm Franklyn Cineworld 17 / 6.00pm Frequently Asked Questions about Time Travel Cineworld 9 / 6.00pm

Cowards Screen 2 / 4.00pm Jerichow Screen 1 / 6.00pm Four Ages of Love Screen 2 / 6.00pm Two Lovers Cineworld 17 / 6.00pm

Snow IFI 1 / 6.30pm

Were the World Mine Cineworld 9 / 6.00pm

Boy A Screen 1 / 6.45pm

Our Wonderful Home IFI 1 / 6.30pm

Memory Cineworld 9 / 8.00pm

The Karamazovs Screen 1 / 8.00pm

Il Divo Valentino Movies@Dundrum / 8.00pm Cineworld 17 / 8.00pm Synecdoche New York Cineworld 17 / 8.30pm

Disgrace Movies@Dundrum / 8.00pm

Just Another Love Story Screen 2 / 8.30pm

Not Quite Hollywood Screen 2 / 8.30pm

Exterminating Angels Screen 1 / 8.45pm

Mise Éire Cineworld 9 / 8.30pm

Wednesday 18 Feb

Thursday 19 Feb

Friday 20 Feb

Saturday 21 Feb

Sunday 22 Feb

Paradise IFI 1 / 12.30pm

Brief Encounter Screen 1 / 2.00pm

Stone Pastures Cineworld 9 / 4.00pm

The Burning Plain Savoy 1 / 11.00am

Marley & Me Savoy 1 / 11.00am

Withnail and I Screen 1 / 2.00pm

My Father and Son Screen 2 / 2.00pm

South IFI 2 / 4.00pm

The Captive IFI 1 / 1.00pm

Last Chance Harvey Savoy 1 / 2.00pm

Takva Screen 2 / 2.00pm

The American Friend Screen 1 / 4.00pm

Cherrybomb Cineworld 17 / 6.00pm

Today is Better than Two Tomorrows Cineworld 9 / 2.00pm

New Town Killers Cineworld 9 / 2.00pm

Heart of Fire Screen 2 / 4.00pm

From the Other Side IFI 2 / 4.00pm

Zift Cineworld 9 / 6.00pm

A Couch In New York Screen 1 / 4.30pm

Cold Lunch Screen 2 / 4.10pm

Encounters at the End of the World Light House / 6.00pm

Lasair 4 Premiere Light House / 4.00pm

Bart Got A Room Cineworld 9 / 6.00pm

Awaydays Screen 2 / 6.00pm

A Song For Dad IFI 1 / 6.30pm

Bitter and Twisted Cineworld 9 / 4.10pm

Religulous Cineworld 17 / 6.00pm

Broken Lines Cineworld 9 / 6.00pm

Genova Cineworld 17 / 8.00pm

Sugar Cineworld 17 / 6.00pm

Goodnight Irene Screen 2 / 6.00pm

Irish Film Board Shorts IFI 1 / 6.30pm

Dorothy Mills Cineworld 9 / 8.00pm

Johnny Mad Dog Cineworld 9 / 6.00pm

The Yellow Bittern: The Life and Times of Liam Clancy IFI 1 / 6.30pm

The Desert Within Screen 1 / 6.30pm

The Candidate Screen 1 / 6.40pm Tokyo!

Screen 2 / 8.00pm Is There Anybody There?

Cineworld 17 / 8.00pm Shifty Cineworld 9 / 8.00pm

Anvil! The Story of Anvil Cineworld 17 / 8.00pm Liam Clancy & Friends Live at the Bitter End Movies@Dundrum / 8.00pm Blue Eyelids Screen 2 / 8.10pm Two For the Road Light House / 8.15pm

Delta Light House / 2.00pm

Three Blind Mice Cineworld 9 / 4.00pm In the City Of Sylvia Light House / 4.00pm Surprise Film Savoy 1 / 5.30pm The Secret of Kells Savoy 1 / 8.30pm

Five Minutes Turn It Loose Movies@Dundrum / 8.00pm of Heaven Savoy 1 / 6.15pm The Possibility of an Island Light House / 8.15pm

The Seasons IFI 1 / 7.30pm My Only Sunshine Light House / 8.15pm Let the Right One In Cineworld 17 / 8.20pm The Daisy Chain Cineworld 9 / 8.30pm

The Mark Of An Angel The Karamazovs Screen 1 / 8.40pm Movies@Dundrum / 8.00pm Kill Daddy Goodnight Screen 1 / 8.40pm

Chris and Don Cineworld 9 / 8.50pm

• Gala Presentation Please check www.jdiff.com for screening times.

All information in this brochure is correct at the time of publication. Programme is subject to change.

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 15

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We wish The Dublin International Film Festival every success www.thefilmfactoryireland.com Distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Ireland

Booking Information Book online at www.jdiff.com Or phone 01 672 8861 Box Office Details

LIFFE

CHURCH

Opening hours: 10.00am – 6.00pm, Monday – Saturday (From 27th Jan – 12th Feb)

LUAS

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CINEWORLD & BOX OFFICE

Filmbase Curved Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2

SAVOY

SCREEN

FILMBASE & BOX OFFICE

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10.00am – 6.00pm, Daily (from 13th Feb – 22nd Feb) Cineworld Foyer Parnell Street, Dublin 1 Opening hours: 2.00pm – 8.30pm, Daily (From 27th Jan – 12th Feb)

DUN

DRU

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12.00pm - 8.30pm, Daily (from 13th Feb – 22nd Feb) MOVIES@DUNDRUM

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Ticket Prices

JDIFF Packages

Multi-Purchase Tickets

Full Season Ticket Valid for all screenings

€230

Turkish Cinema Season Package €60 Please see page 21 for further details.

5 Tickets €45 Excludes galas and special presentations.

Opening Gala

€18

Irish Cinema Season Package €80 Please see page 22 for further details

10 Tickets €80 Excludes galas and special presentations.

Closing Gala

€18

French Cinema Season Package €60 Please see page 23 for further details.

A booking fee of €1 applies to phone and online booking

Special Presentations Selected films only

€18

Real to Reel Package €100 Please see page 25 for further details.

For full terms and conditions log on to www.jdiff.com

All Screenings

€10

Out of the Past Package €40 Please see page 26 for further details.

My Favourite Film Package €40 Please see page 27 for further details.

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 17

Chantal Akerman Tribute A Very Subtle Violence…

Widely regarded as one of the more important independent European filmmakers of recent decades, Chantal Anne Akerman was born in Brussels in 1950. Her interest in film was ignited at the age of 15 upon viewing Jean-Luc Godard’s masterpiece Pierrot le Fou (1965). The fire still rages.

Having enrolled on the film training programme at the Insitut des Arts du Spectacle et Technique de Diffusion (INSAS) in Brussels, Akerman left after just one term to make her debut short film Saute ma ville (Blow Up My Town).

In 1971 Akerman moved to New York where she absorbed the influences of conceptual and avant-garde film and began to develop and exhibit the singular style of her early features Hotel Monterrey (1972) and Jetuilelle (1974). Techniques including minimal camera movement and stripped-down dialogue led to Akerman’s breakthrough feminist film Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975). The timeliness and critical success of Jeanne Dielman enabled Akerman to gravitate towards semi-commercial filmmaking and since the mid 1970s she has managed to weave a sometimes uneven but always coherent path between commercial filmmaking and documentary film (A Couch in New York, 1996 and South, 1999). More recently she has also become involved in university teaching and video art installation.

She lectures on ‘Crossing Cinematic Borders’ at the European Graduate School in Switzerland and her art installation work was selected for the Venice Biennale in 2001 and the documenta at Kassel in 2002.

The films of Chantal Akerman have been described as being inhabited ‘by characters who are in the process of becoming themselves’ and she has tagged her own fictional characters as ‘people who are as blurred as myself’. In the words of Adrian Martin, they are ‘20th century world citizens, displaced, nomadic, and rootless’. It is perhaps the unfixed nature of her subjects and the often painfully fixed nature of her camerawork that creates that essential tension resulting in the peculiar taste of an Akerman film. She has spoken about her trademark film technique of extended duration takes as ‘a kind of violence

in the way I use time… a very subtle violence… a violence of implosion’. The combined effect of this barely restrained violence and the director’s utter indifference to the rubric of any kind of national cinema have established Chantal Akerman as a fascinating prototype for contemporary transnational film practice in Europe.

Conor J. Murphy • Chantal Akerman will attend this season.

South (Sud) Friday 20 Feb / IFI 2 / 4.00pm 1999 / France / 70 minutes Initially planned as a film exploring the captivating literary legacy of America’s Deep South, Chantal Akerman found herself preparing one film while another story was unfolding its tragedy around her. South is an accidental documentary which skilfully documents an incident far from accidental – the premeditated racial killing of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper, Texas.

South enthrals the viewer as it appals the viewer. We sense the essence of the Deep South and its unrehearsed cast of mourners as we share in the pain and disbelief of the family and friends of the murdered James Byrd Jr. Yet this is not another worthy murder trial film with a guaranteed verdict waiting to be revealed. Akerman’s question is the question all audiences of this film must ask themselves. It’s as if it were a question borrowed from the novels of William Faulkner: “How does the southern silence become so heavy and so menacing so suddenly?”

Print Source: AMIP

The Captive (La Captive) Saturday 21 Feb / IFI 1 / 1.00pm 2000 / France / Belgium / 118 minutes Loosely based on the fifth volume of Proust’s monumental novel ‘Remembrance of Things Past’, Chantal Akerman’s film The Captive is a tale of possession, obsession, dysfunction, fragility and perhaps, of love.

Simon (Stanislas Merhar) lives a secluded but privileged existence with his lover Ariane (Sylvie Testud) in his wealthy grandmother’s Paris apartment. Simon’s social and emotional isolation creates a climate of obsessive behaviour. Or is his growing obsession the cause of his isolation? Encouraging Ariane to experiment sexually he becomes increasingly paranoid sensing her ever-distancing orbit.

Laced with implicit thematic and explicit visual references to Hitchcock’s Vertigo, the film constantly reminds us of the unsteadying nature of viewing. As the lovers bathe separately on opposites sides of a frosted glass partition, we see that to view is to capture. To be viewed is to be a prisoner and Ackerman overcomes the great obstacle of literary adaptation into film. Her achievement is simply to show, never to tell.

Print Source: Le Petit Bureau

From the East (D’Est) Sunday 15 Feb / IFI 2 / 4.00pm 1993 / Belgium / France / Portugal / 110 minutes Labelling particular films as ‘extraordinary’ has too often become a commonplace. Chantal Akerman’s singular documentary film D’Est – From the Eastv is extraordinary because it takes the viewer into a common place. The achievement lies in the fact that this is not a place which is common to the viewer.

Charting a journey made eastwards from Germany to Moscow in the immediate aftermath of the disintegration of the Soviet sphere, Akerman’s camera passes through Poland and the Baltic States like a ghost passing through a graveyard. We are there but we are not there. The film documents a journey through moving images and through the passage of time but crucially, the film also becomes a document of what is being journeyed through.

D’Est – From the East is so much of its own time that it becomes timeless. No dialogue.

No director’s commentary. Call it minimalist.

Call it structuralist. Call it what you will. I call it extraordinary.

Print Source: Lieurac Productions

18 • Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009

A Couch in New York (Un divan a New York)

From the East (D’Est)

From the Other Side

Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

South (Sud)

La Captive

Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

A Couch in New York (Un divan a New York)

From the Other Side (De l’autre côte)

Friday 13 Feb / Screen 2 / 2.00pm 1975 / Belgium / France / 201 minutes

Wednesday 18 Feb / Screen 1 / 4.30pm 1996 / USA / 108 minutes

Thurday 19 Feb / IFI 2 / 4.00pm 2002 / France / 103 minutes

Hailed by the New York Times on its release as ‘the first masterpiece of the feminine in the history of the cinema’ Jeanne Dielman… is a conscious homage to Godard and the emergence of alternative cinematic depictions of women.

A romantic comedy from Chantal Akerman, the renowned Belgian feminist documentary filmmaker? Surely some mistake. But Couch in New York is all the more refreshing for coming from so unexpected a source.

Chantal Akerman’s 2002 documentary depicting the plight of migrant workers and their attempts at clandestine entry to the US is as timely as it is penetrating. This is the ultimate document of the ‘Other’ on film. As a filmmaker from a consciously and deliberately divided society like Belgium, Akerman is uniquely positioned to capture the full offense of the incongruities exposed in all their ugliness through her piercing gaze over the perpetual theatre of war known as the Mexican-American border.

Jeanne Dielman is a single mother, a homemaker, a prostitute and she kills a man. So far, so regular. Akerman’s approach however is not so much to present the poignant story of a woman struggling to get by over three days in Brussels but rather to tear up the rule book of filmmaking and present us with an entirely unexpected lexicon of film language.

Static framing and long duration shots force the viewer to acknowledge the paralysing rigidity of the portrayal of women within the confines of traditional masculine filmmaking.

Over thirty years later the film stands almost alone as a unique expression of a radically new way to show and to see womanhood in European film.

Print Source: Cinématheque Royale

New York psychoanalyst Henry Harriston (William Hurt) tries to step away from the stresses of his professional life and the demands of his neurotic patients by arranging a flat swap through a Paris agency.

French ingénue Beatrice Saulnier (Juliette Binoche) replies to the advert. Cue airport dash, transatlantic confusion, cultural misunderstanding, accordion soundtrack and, intriguingly, the growling tones of Paolo Conte. It’s all too much for Henry who returns to New York to reclaim his life, but yes, you’ve guessed it…

Stylish and beautifully paced, A Couch in New York is like using your sat nav to drive home. You know exactly where you are going but its such fun you can’t take your eyes off the screen. Hurt and Binoche do exactly what we expect Hurt and Binoche to do: they delight. Chantal Akerman’s transnational experiment is a triumph.

North up against South. Rich against poor.

Mexican against American. High grade military technology pitted against low grade human need. Akerman inspects the lines drawn up on both sides, interviewing terrified would-be Mexican migrants on the eve of battle and talking with conflict-worn border guards on the other side of this eternal divide. The outcome is inevitable. It always will be as long as there is somebody on the other side.

Print Source: AMIP

Print Source: Tamasa Distribution Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 19

Turkish Cinema Season

To see all the films featured in the JDIFF Turkish Season purchase the full package for €60 at www.jdiff.com

Takva

Dry Summer (Susuz Yaz)

Gitmek: My Marlon and Brando (Benim Marlon ve Brando)

Havar

My Only Sunshine (Hayat Var)

My Father and Son (Babam Ve Oglum)

Dot (Nokta)

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 21

Irish Cinema

Helen

To see all the films featured in the JDIFF Irish Season purchase the full package for €80 at www.jdiff.com.

(This offer doesn’t apply to The Secret of Kells).

Dorothy Mills

A Song for Dad

Creative Chaos

The Daisy Chain

Cherrybomb

Five Minutes of Heaven

Our Wonderful Home

Liam Clancy at the Bitter End

Stone Pastures

The Secret of Kells

22 • Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009

The Seasons

Mise Éire

Today is Better than Two Tomorrows

French Cinema

To see all the films featured in the JDIFF French Season purchase the full package for €60 at www.jdiff.com

The Grocers Son (Le Fils de l’épicier)

Exterminating Angels (Les Anges Exterminateur)

The Possibility of an Island

The Class (Entre les Murs)

The Mark of an Angel (L’Empreinte de l’Ange)

Les Enfants du Paradis

Johnny Mad Dog

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 23

my inspiration Aaron Eckhart

World domination.

The same old dream.

Sean Connery as James Bond Dr. No (1962)

The Dark Knight out now

Real to Reel

To see all the films featured in the JDIFF Real to Reel Season purchase the full package for €100 at www.jdiff.com

Documentary Season

Bigger Stronger Faster

Religulous

Not Quite Hollywood

Creative Chaos

Encounters at the End of the World

Paradise

Three Miles North of Molkom

Chris & Don A Love Story

Derek

American Teen

A Song For Dad

Stone Pastures

The Yellow Bittern: The Life and Times of Liam Clancy

Turn it Loose

Anvil! The Story of Anvil

Liam Clancy Live at the Bitter End

Pirate for the Sea

Today is Better than Two Tomorrows

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 25

Out of the Past

To see all the films featured in the Out of the Past Season purchase the full package for €40 at www.jdiff.com

Treasures from film archives around the world.

The Housemaid

Dry Summer

Mise Éire

The Seasons

Two for the Road

26 • Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009

Letter Never Sent

My Favourite Film

To see all the films featured in the My Favourite Film Package purchase the full package for €40 at www.jdiff.com

This year, as part of our celebration of European Cinema, we have invited a number of people whose work we admire to select their favourite European title.

Each film will be attended by our invited guests and they will participate in a short Q&A after the event discussing the reason for their choice.

Three Colours: Blue – chosen by broadcaster Zbyszek Zalinski

The American Friend – chosen by Dennis Hickie, former Ireland rugby player.

My Life As A Dog – chosen by Garry Hynes, Theatre Director

Withnail and I – chosen by Tom Doorley, Food Writer & Critic

Les Enfants du Paradis – chosen by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Poet

Brief Encounter – chosen by Camille O’Sullivan, Actress & Chanteuse

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 27

Enjoy the film from all at AIB.

Choose AIB for all your daily banking needs.

Drop in to your local AIB branch, call us on 1890 724724 or click on www.aib.ie

Terms and conditions apply. Allied Irish Banks, p.l.c. is regulated by the Financial Regulator.

Outreach Programme Dublin City Public Libraries over 55’s Film Quiz

Hospital Screenings

After the success of last year’s partnership, Dublin City Public Libraries, in association with the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival are delighted to announce a very special film quiz for over 55’s. Hosted by quizmaster Michael Dwyer, film editor and long standing film correspondent for The Irish Times, whose first book Michael Dwyer’s Film Quiz Book: Irish, Hollywood and World Cinema, promises to bring some brain racking fun to homes across Ireland.

Libraries across the city, will field teams of three who will go on to compete in the film quiz final on February 7th in Dublin City Library and Archive, Pearse St, Dublin 1.

For more details about this event contact your local library or visit www. dublincitypubliclibraries.ie Liam Clancy & Shane MacGowan, Liam Clancy Live at the Bitter End.

This year the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival is expanding its outreach programme by working with a number of Dublin hospitals to bring the film festival to each venue, to allow patients and staff alike to celebrate cinema during the festival dates. With the gracious co-operation of the listed venues, we will present a film programme consisting of short films and Alan Gilsenan’s concert documentary, Liam Clancy and Friends – Live At The Bitter End. This presentation captures internationally renowned folksinger Liam Clancy of The Clancy Brothers upon his return to Greenwich Village, the location of his first recordings, for a unique music event.

Specially staged and filmed before an invited audience at the legendary Bitter End club, this concert is a rare and intimate portrait of one of the greatest ballad singers of our time as he is joined on stage for a number of remarkable performances

by Odetta, Tom Paxton, Shane MacGowan, Eric Bibb, Fionn Regan and Gemma Hayes.

This year the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival Outreach Programme’s screenings of Liam Clancy and Friends – Live At The Bitter End, in the unique

environs of some of Dublin’s most valued care institutions, is a singular opportunity to celebrate both the vital work done by hospital staff, and the character of their patients, through cinema.

The Coombe Women’s Hospital Dolphin’s Barn, Dublin 8 Ph: +353 1 408 5200 The Mater Misericordiae University Hospital Eccles Street, Dublin 7 Ph: +353 1 803 2000 St. Vincent’s University Hospital Elm Park, Dublin 4 Ph: +353 1 221 4001 St James’s Hospital James Street, Dublin 8 Ph: +353 1 410 3000

JDIFF 08, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.

St Luke’s Hospital Highfield Road, Rathgar Road, Dublin 6 Ph + 353 1 497 4552 The Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital Adelaide Road, Dublin 2 Ph + 353 1 664 4600

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 29

Irish Film Board Shorts

The Door

Shapes

Of Best Intentions

An Ranger

Granny O’Grimms Sleeping Beauty

The Irish Film Board and the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival are pleased to present this showcase of new work in the short film format. The programme features both established and up-andcoming filmmakers and exemplifies the diverse range of talent, technical expertise and innovative styles which have already been recognised both in Ireland and internationally. The Irish Film Board supports the JDIFF by showcasing industry talent and Irish new work which is promoted on an international platform at the festival.

A number of these short films are funded by the Irish Film Board, the Arts Council, RTÉ and TG4 under the schemes of Short Cuts Frameworks and Oscailt.

Shapes Director: Alan Brennan Claire’s night terrors are taking their toll on her relationship with Will. Scared he’s leaving her, Claire seeks assurance that everything is fine and that there’s no monster in the bedroom… (5 mins) Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty Director: Nicky Phelan Granny O’Grimm, a seemingly sweet old lady, loses the plot as she tells her version of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ to her terrified granddaughter. (5 mins)

Colour Contamination

Hoor

Hoor Director: John Kennedy Hoor tells the short story of three young lads paying a visit to the local prostitute in order to lose their virginity. The prostitute, Desire, sizes them up, takes their money and, one by one, she leads us to believe she gives them what they have paid for.

Only with the last boy, Ciaran, clearly the youngest and most nervous of the boys do we see what Desire is really up to. (3 mins) An Ranger Director: PJ Dillon Connemara, 1854 – Five years after the Great Famine. After many years abroad in the service of the British Army, a soldier returns home to find that his family are all dead. He visits a neighbour to establish what happened to them. (10 mins) Of Best Intentions Director:Brian Durnin Broken hearts, shattered dreams and the destruction of the earth’s ozone layer, Of Best Intentions is a film that examines the lives of five well-meaning individuals as fate decides to intervene. (14 mins)

Spacemen Three

The Rooster, The Crocodile and The Night Sky

Spacemen Three Director: Hugh O’Conor Astro-geologist Dr. Glen Hosey is in space for the first time. His unusual method of passing the time isn’t exactly compatible with the peaceful voyage the other two astronauts anticipated… (12 mins) Colour Contamination Director: Louise Bagnall A clean cut business man who is adverse to all things colourful enters a waiting room filled with colourful plastic chairs and is forced to confront his worst fears. (3 mins) The Rooster, The Crocodile and The Night Sky Director: Pádraig Fagan A tale of passion, loss, surreal comedy and explosive violence animated in a cut-out style combining cardboard, tinfoil, paint on glass and super 8 film to create a dreamy, hand-made aesthetic. (7 mins) The Door Director: Juanita Wilson The Door is based on the true story of a father and his young daughter set in Russia 1986. (17 mins).

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 31

Parallel Events Casting Symposium

Star Rating

Thierry Fremaux

Spotlight, the UK’s leading casting service (www.spotlight.com), will sponsor an international panel of top casting directors who will speak on topics of interest to actors.

Established three years ago, The Dublin Film Critics Circle offers the city’s professional movie reviewers an opportunity to pool opinions on recent releases, consider movie heritage and whinge about each other’s shortcomings.

This year, The Jameson Dublin International Film Festival has invited a panel from the DFCC to chew over their favourite films screening at the event. Five DFCC members, including Circle President Tara Brady (Hot Press), Donald Clarke (The Irish Times), John Maguire (Sunday Business Post and Today FM) and Paul Lynch (Sunday Tribune) will be joined by a distinguished foreign critic and, following debate, will announce their awards for best film, best performances and best Irish films at JDIFF 2009. The discussion, which will be broadcast on RTÉ Radio, is to be hosted by veteran broadcaster Dave Fanning. Expected a blend of high-falutin’ cinema-speak and old fashioned bickering.

Thierry Fremaux was appointed Artistic Director of the Cannes International Film Festival in 2000 and was appointed to the position of General Manager in 2007. Since his appointment, Fremaux has expanded the Official Competition to include animation and documentaries, his Cannes Classic programming has embraced new media whilst also recognising the importance of cinema history, often including restorations within the festival programme. During his 8 years at the helm of the world’s most influential film festival, the festival has increased its international profile as well as its commitment to world cinema, nurturing new work from emerging cinemas such as Korea, Phillipines and Romania. Outside of his responsibilities for Cannes, Mr Fremaux is also the Directeur General of the renowned Institut Lumiere in Lyon.

The discussion will focus on how Irish actors can break into the international scene and the importance of the Internet in casting and actor marketing. This two-hour symposium will include a one hour question and answer session, with casting directors and a Spotlight representative taking questions from the audience.

Moderator: Nancy Bishop, CSA (US/Prague). Projects include “Wanted” and “Prince Caspian” (www.nancybishopcasting.com) Panellists: John and Ros Hubbard (UK/Ireland), “King Kong,” “The Bourne Ultimatum.”

– Lucinda Syson (UK) “Batman Begins”, “Syriana” Maureen Duff (UK: London/Glasgow) “Closing the Ring”, “Crime and Punishment” Frank Moiselle (Ireland) “The Tudors”, “Veronica Guerin”

Friday 20th February at 6.00pm – IFI Meeting Room Listen to Fanning on Film: Dave Fanning at the JDIFF Nightly reports on the festival to be broadcast weekdays on RTÉ Radio 1, 7.02pm – 8.00pm.

Pippa Harrison (UK): Spotlight (www.spotlight.com)

This event is designed for actors & acting students and other related professionals.

Saturday 14th February 11am – Conrad Hotel

Thierry Fremaux 32 • Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009

While in Dublin, Mr Fremaux will participate in a Public Interview with Simon Perry, CEO of the Irish Film Board, he will also introduce the screening of the archive screening of the Korean classic The Housemaid.

Friday 13th February at 4pm in Lighthouse – Public Interview Friday 13th February at 6.30pm in IFI 1 – The Housemaid

In Conversation with Frederic Raphael

Creative Cinema Panel Discussion “Film is a battleground. Love, hate, violence, action, death... in a word, emotion.”

So veteran director Samuel Fuller defined Cinema in Jean Luc Godard’s classic Pierrot le Fou. But how true are those words when you are making your feature film debut, working with small budgets and tough shooting schedules. How can you create and maintain the energy and momentum to stay true to your story and characters?

Three emerging filmmakers who have impressed many with their debut features will discuss the emotions of filmmaking and other stories in a panel discussion about staying true to your creative voice.

Wednesday 18th February at 4pm in IFI – Meeting Room

Panelists: Margaret Corkery (Eamon) Eran Creevy (Shifty) Ivan Kavanagh (Our Wonderful Home) Two for the Road

Chair: Frederic Raphael is an American-born, British-educated screenwriter as well as a prolific novelist and journalist. He won an Oscar for the screenplay for the 1965 movie Darling, and two years later an Oscar nomination for his screenplay for Two for the Road, a 1967 movie directed by Stanley Donen about the twelve-year relationship between an architect (Albert Finney) and his wife (Audrey Hepburn). He also wrote the screenplay for the 1967 film adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd directed by John Schlesinger.

His articles and book reviews appear in a number of newspapers and magazines and he has published more than twenty novels, the best-known of which is the semi-autobiographical The Glittering Prizes

(1976), which traces the lives of a group of Cambridge University undergraduates in post-war. His adaptation of the book into a BBC series won him a Royal Television Society Writer of the Year Award.

Alan Maher (Irish Film Board)

Raphael has also published several history books, collections of essays and translations. He has also written biographies of Somerset Maugham and Lord Byron. In 1999, Raphael published Eyes Wide Open, a memoir of his collaboration with legendary director Stanley Kubrick on the screenplay of Eyes Wide Shut, Kubrick’s final movie.

We are delighted to welcome Mr Raphael to discuss a rare screening of Two for the Road on Thursday 19th February at 6.30pm.

Eamon

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 33

Ireland’s premier film and television production centre sends Best Wishes to the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival

Kevin Moriarty, Managing Director, Ardmore Studios Ltd., Herbert Road, Bray, Co. Wicklow T 00 353 1 286 2971 F 00 353 1 286 1894 E film@ardmore.ie

Productions include • John Boorman’s The Tailor of Panama • Pierce Brosnan’s Laws of Attraction • Mel Gibson’s Braveheart • Neil Jordan’s Breakfast on Pluto • Alan Parker’s The Commitments • Jim Sheridan’s My Left Foot

www.ardmore.ie

Currently in production • The Tudors starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers

CONTACT

Parallel Events (continued) Film Classifier for a Day

In Conversation with Clive Owen

This year, the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival, in association with the Irish Film Classification Office, is screening a ‘secret’ film event. According to the Censor’s archives at the time of its original release in 1973, this film was not even submitted to the then censor, Dermot Breen, ‘knowing full well what the response would be’. When submitted in 1981 to the new film censor, Frank Hall, it was again banned, a decision upheld by the Appeals Board. Following the JDIFF 2009 screening, there will be an audience discussion with the IFCO team, and this once ‘notorious’ film will be given a certificate by the Director of Film Classification. This screening will also be one of the final screenings in the IFCO buildings in Harcourt Terrace before their move to Lighthouse Cinema in Smithfield.

There are a very limited number of seats for this historic event, to rsvp please email to specialevents@jdiff.com by Monday 16th February.

Thursday 19th February at 11am – IFCO, 16 Harcourt Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland.

JDIFF 08, Donald Clarke Interviews Marianne Faithfull.

Jameson have created a very special event for this years festival. For this inaugural Jameson Film Experience we are delighted to welcome Clive Owen to Dublin to participate in an onstage interview with Mark Dinning, Editor, Empire magazine. International leading man Clive Owen made his film debut in 1988’s Vroom after establishing himself through a wide array of stage work in the UK. His diverse and distinguished film credits include Mike Hodges’ Croupier (1998), Gosford Park (2001), The Bourne Identity (2002), Closer (2004), Sin City (2005), Inside Man (2006), and Children of Men (2006).

This Graphic Novel themed event will take place at The Academy and following the interview, the renowned DJ Yoda will take over the venue and present one of his dazzling film-focused sets.

Tickets will be allocated on a lottery basis, please see website for details www.jdiff.com Tuesday 17th February at 8.00pm – Academy HQ

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 35

Irish Talent Spotlight Cartoon Saloon

Margaret Corkery Born 1976 in Cork and currently based in Dublin. Eamon, a romantic comedy, is Margaret’s feature film debut. Her short films have won many international awards.

The most widely screened of her shorts include “Killing the Afternoon” 2005 (Winner Best Irish Short, Cork 2005, In competition Berlinale 2005) and “RTÉ, Dance on the Box, Joyride” 2006. As a writer/director she is currently developing several projects including a children’s comedy and a family drama. Her films tend to combine comedy and suspense. As a writer/director of cinema she aims ideally to create films that are authorial with some mainstream appeal.

The Secret of Kells

The Irish animation company Cartoon Saloon picked up the Europe Cartoon Tributes and Best Production Company Award at Cartoon Forum in Ludwigsburg, Germany recently.

The European Association of Animation Film selected Cartoon Saloon as their Producer of the Year over stiff competition from production companies from the UK, Germany and France. The Cartoon Tributes recognises companies that have had a positive influence on the European animation industry over the last year.

Cartoon Saloon began as an informal partnership between a group of animators brought together by Paul Young and Tomm Moore in 1999 and has since grown into a multi-award winning animation and illustration design studio.

production of the 52 part cartoon series, directed by Aidan Harte. The series has been sold to television stations worldwide, including the BBC, TG4, Super RTL Disney in Germany, ABC Australia and many other stations around Europe. The children’s series follows the antics and adventures of young Skunk who learns the art of Kung Fu from a wise old panda in China.

The Company have recently completed ‘The Secret Of Kells’, directed by Tomm Moore. The film is the animated story of the boy behind the famed Book of Kells and is co-produced by Academy Award nominated Les Armateurs, France, and Vivi Film, Belgium. The Secret Of Kells will be premiered at the 2009 Jameson Dublin International Film Festival on Sunday 22nd February at the Closing Gala.

Eamon

Margaret Corkery

Following an overwhelming response at the 2003 Cartoon Forum in Varesse, Italy, the company attracted a great deal of interest in their ‘Skunk Fu!’ project, resulting in the

Paul Young 36 • Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009

As well as cinema, Margaret has a keen interest in directing tv commercials and TV drama. Represented by Zanita Films she has directed several commercials over the last 2 years. She attended The Scottish film School (Napier University, Edinburgh) graduating in 2002. She also holds a Masters degree in Fine Art from Westminster University, London.

Tomm Moore

Awards Audience Award

Screenwriting Award The Jameson Dublin International Film Festival supported by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (Ireland) have come together to recognise the centrality of the writer to the filmmaking process in a brand new screenwriting award, Write Here, Write Now. This substantial award will acknowledge and support the creation of original and innovative scripts, through a combination of development funding, as well as extensive promotion within the film industry.

The winning script will receive a cash prize of €7,500. The winner will be announced during JDIFF 2009.

Judging Panel:

JDIFF 08, U2 3D, The Audience.

The Jameson Dublin International Film Festival once again is proud to highlight the Audience Award for the most popular feature film shown over the course of the event. Every festival member will be given the opportunity to vote for their favourite film with the results being announced at the end of the festival.

Trish Long – Chair (Walt Disney Motion Pictues, Ireland) Details of the Audience Award winner will be available from Monday 23rd February.

Visit www.jdiff.com.

Lenny Abrahamson (Director) David Flynn (United Talent Agency) John Hurt (Actor) Sue Bruce Smith (Film Four) Irvine Welsh (Writer/Director)

Write Here, Write Now.

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 37

JDIFF Volunteers Volunteers One of the key elements to the success each year of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival is our Volunteer programme. Over the 7 years of the festival, the volunteer programme has expanded and developed around the requirements of the festival. What began as a team of 60 volunteers for the 1st JDIFF in 2003 is now in the region of 200 volunteers working both on a full and part time basis over the festival period.

Our volunteers are of all ages and from all walks of life. We have a large contingent of international volunteers - in 2008 Italy, Poland, Hungary, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Nigeria, Greece, Russia, China, Japan, Turkey, Croatia, Sweden, Norway, Iran, United States, Canada, Chile and Finland were all represented and worked alongside our large Irish volunteer contingent. We all have one common interest – we all love film.

Volunteers assist across the different areas of operation for the festival, primarily in our venues but also in our guest and hospitality office as well as administration and production. Every year, we get an ever increasing amount of returning volunteers who very much look forward to festival time and seeing familiar faces.

Many friendships are formed amongst the volunteers each year, and we do encourage a strong social dynamic. 2009 will see regular events organised at the festival bar by way of venue team nights out and a volunteer film quiz.

The Festival is very proud of it’s volunteer programme and remains very grateful to the many volunteers who have kindly participated over the years.

Quackser Fortune has a Cousin in the Bronx.

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 39

5 GOLDEN GLOBE NOMINATIONS BEST PICTURE (Drama) • BEST DIRECTOR David Fincher • BEST ACTOR (Drama) BRAD PITT BEST SCREENPLAY Eric Roth • BEST ORIGINAL SCORE Alexandre Desplat

“Moving and thoughtful, epic and intimate, Button offers life through different eyes.”

HHHHH EMPIRE

“...A gorgeous epic that has Oscar written all over it.”

THE IRISH TIMES

“An epic of rare craft and ambition. An astounding achievement.”

HHHH TOTAL FILM

12A

IN CINEMAS FEB 6

Friends of the Festival Become a Friend of the Festival and Support Ireland’s Premier Film Event in 2010 Don’t get left out of the picture!

Become a friend of The Jameson Dublin International Film Festival today and enjoy an extra special festival experience in 2010.

With some of the finest international films shown over eleven days, this is your chance to indulge your inner film lover and become part of the action.

The JDIFF Friends Program allows you to experience the festival as an acknowledged supporter of one of Ireland’s Premier Cultural Events and as an A–list festival guest. Walk the red carpet with the stars, attend glamorous after-show parties, be among an exclusive set of people to get the very first peek at the 2010 programme and gain unlimited access to the very best in International and Irish Cinema.

Benefits include: • One Friend of the Festival Pass that will allow access to all screenings in the festival excepting Gala Screenings and Special Presentations

• Listing on Dedicated Friends page on official JDIFF website as a Friend of the Festival

Friends of the Festival:

• Listing in the Official Programme as a Festival Friend (circulation 20,000)

Daniel Waller

• Benefits are subject to package taken; Student friend €80, Friend of the Festival €275, Corporate Friend €595

The Jameson Dublin International Film Festival is a not-for-profit event that would not be possible without the generous support of our private and corporate friends.

Stay in touch throughout the year and get even more enjoyment out of the festival by becoming a Friend. Find out more about Becoming a Friend of the Festival and the packages available log on to www.jdiff.com or call 01 662 4260.

Warmest Regards, The Jameson Dublin International Film Festival team.

Emma Norton, Element Pictures

leanna Gannon David Collins Siobhan Kavanagh Stephen Keating Kevin Moriarty, Ardmore Studios Paul Ellis Tom O’Haire Ian Murray Andy Bradford Chris Upton Joseph Smyth Brian McKevitt

• Invitation for you and a guest to the Friends Gala Screening and After show party • Invitation to Priority Booking Day (ahead of public booking) to secure tickets • Complimentary Official Festival Programme • Dedicated hotline to our Friends Box Office Assistant • Exclusive access to JDIFF Friends online booking facility • Invitation to Programme Launch event • No Booking Fee charged on any transaction • Invitations to special events throughout the festival JDIFF 08, In Bruges, Colin Farrell.

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 41

Official wheels of The 2009 Jameson Dublin International Film Festival.

Opening Film Doubt Thursday 12 February Savoy 1 / 8.30pm Director: John Patrick Shanley 2008 / USA / 104 minutes Principal Cast: Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Viola Davis

From the minute I watched the first sequence, I knew that John Patrick Shanley’s stunning new film had to be part of our film festival. Therefore, it is a very special honour to present Doubt as our Opening Presentation.

It is 1964 and America is still numb with grief, the death of JFK has shattered the hope and idealism of a nation, and the onset of winter with its attendant snow and winds encircles The Saint Nicholas Church School in the Bronx.

There are four principal characters: Father Brendan Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the progressive priest who presides over the school and its church; Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Meryl Streep), the old-school nun who sees sin and wrongdoing everywhere; Sister James (Amy Adams), the young and idealistic newcomer; and Mrs Muller (Viola Davis), the mother of a boy who becomes central to the story.

Mrs Muller’s son Donald is the only African-American student at St. Nicholas, and Father Flynn encourages him to join in with sports, seems to give him special attention, he also appoints him as an altar boy. Then Sister James notices that the Father Flynn has summoned the boy to the rectory alone. She decides this behaviour is inappropriate and informs Sister Aloysius, whose sees an opportunity to destroy her enemy and the battle commences.

Alongside many of those whose cinema-going started in the 1980s, I have long since believed that Meryl Streep is the world’s greatest film actress, whilst Philip Seymour Hoffman has become one of our favourite character actors, winning the Oscar for his stunning turn in Capote. I was immediately attracted to the possibility of these two titans of American cinema facing off against each other and no one who sees this film will be disappointed. This pairing are more than matched by the supporting cast with a fine performance from Amy Adams, but it is Viola Davis, who in a key scene, will break your heart in a million pieces.

Known to many as the screenwriter of Oscar-winning Moonstruck, John Patrick Shanley’s scintillating adaptation of his Pulitzer prize-winning play charts the conflict between old and new, between status and change, between infallibility and uncertainty.

His measured direction gives the film a fantastic sense of time and place, the spartan ritual of the nuns’ existence, paralleled with the poker sessions of the priests. After the basis of watching only his second film as director, one hopes that cinema can lure Mr Shanley away from theatre more often.

But I warn you, at the end of the film, this fine film will leave you talking and arguing for hours. But I will leave the last word to the great US critic Roger Ebert ‘It causes us to start thinking with the first shot, and we never stop.

Think how rare that is in a film’.

Print Source: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Ireland Producers: Scott Rudin, Mark Roybal Screenplay: John Patrick Shanley

Carlton Screen Advertising is proud to support The Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 23 Windsor Place Dublin 2 Tel 01 631 0100 Fax 01 631 0118 www.carltonscreen.ie

Three Colours: Blue

Creative Chaos: Round One (Le Chaos Créatif: Premier Round)

Of Parents and Children (O Rodičích A Dětech)

Friday 13 February Screen 1 / 2.00pm

Friday 13 February Cineworld 9 / 4.00pm

Friday 13 February Screen 1 / 4.30pm

Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski 1993 / France / Poland / Switzerland / 100 minutes

Director: Hassan Zbib 2008 / France / Ireland / 66 minutes

Director: Vladimír Michálek 2008 / Czech Republic / 112 minutes Principal Cast: Josef Somr, David Novotný, Mariana Kroftová, Luboš Kostelný, Zuzana Stivínová

Principal Cast: Juliette Binoche, Benoit Regent, Helene Vincent, Florence Pernel

Krzysztof Kieslowski’s ‘Three Colours’ trilogy, which explores the French Revolutionary ideals of Freedom, Equality and Brotherhood, is a landmark of world cinema.

The first instalment, Three Colours: Blue, was an immediate success, winning the top prizes at the 1993 Venice Film Festival and unanimous praise from critics and audiences the world over.

When her husband, an internationally renowned composer, and her young daughter are both killed in a car accident, Julie (Binoche) is emotionally devastated.

She attempts suicide, but cannot bring herself to take her own life. Instead, she sets about starting over, purging all remnants of her former existence in an attempt to sever her ties to the past.

Kieslowski’s Three Colours trilogy is universally considered a monumental work that blends cinema, philosophy and music in a seamless whole and Three Colours: Blue is a movie that engages the mind, challenges the senses, implores a resolution, and tells, with aesthetic grace and formal elegance, a spellbinding story and a political allegory.

In the aftermath of the 2006 war, a European-based Lebanese film director flies back to his mother’s house, the house he was obliged to flee in order to save his French wife and daughter from the bombings.

He comes back feeling almost guilty, having to cope with the massive scale of destruction in both Beirut and his native village in the South, near the Israeli border.

He meets people who have lost everything but who are still capable of sharing a joke or two.

They share their stories and insight, often with a surreal and detached look at the state of things, and they lead us to a better understanding of the nature of this region, where life seems to be an endless cycle of destruction and reconstruction. He returns to his mother who always refused to flee her own home and guided by her wisdom, he questions himself, his family and his neighbours on religion, the enemy, martyrs, and the absurdity of war.

Experienced director Vladimír Michálek creates a bitter-sweet comedy from a seemingly banal situation, where father and son go on a walk together through the magical urban landscape of Prague.

The story wends its way through the generations, from the family’s private “little” past to major events in 20th century history. This intelligent, fresh and compelling film, inspired by the novel by leading contemporary writer Emil Hakl, offers subtle yet rousing performances from Josef Somr (Father) and David Novotný (Son).

Karlovy Vary Film Festival Programme

• Chosen by broadcaster Zbyszek Zalinski Print Source: Artificial Eye Producer: Marin Karmitz Screenplay: Krzysztof Kieslowski, Krzysztof Piesiewicz

What are the things which unite and divide a 40-year-old son, currently in a trouble-free relationship, and his ageing father, a former scientist whose memory is burdened by two wars and a host of other historical and private absurdities? The bond which has been developing between them for over 40 years has its distressing yet also humorous moments, its obligations and even its mysteries – and it’s still not certain that they can avoid making the same mistakes again and again.

Print Source: Planet Korda Pictures Producers: Jeremiah Cullinane, Oliver Delahaye Screenplay: Hassan Zbib

Print Source: Magic Box Films Producers: Michal Smrek, Jan Dobrovský Screenplay: Vladimír Michálek, Emil Hakl, Jiří Křižan

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 45

Yuri’s Day (Yuryev Den)

In the Loop

Cloud 9

Friday 13 February Screen 2 / 6.00pm

Friday 13 February Cineworld 17 / 6.00pm

Friday 13 February Cineworld 9 / 6.00pm

Director: Kirill Serebrennikov 2008 / Russia / 130 minutes

Director: Armando Ianucci 2008 / United Kingdom / 109 minutes

Director: Andreas Dresen 2008 / Germany / 98 minutes

Principal Cast: Ksenia Rappoport, Evgeniya Kuznetsova, Sergei Sosnovsky, Roman Shmakov, Sergei Medvedev, Igor Khripunov

Principal Cast: James Gandolfini, Tom Hollander, Gina McKee,

Principal Cast: Ursula Werner, Horst Rehberg, Horst Westphal, Steffi Kühnert

Lyuba, a beautiful, sophisticated opera singer, takes a few days off to visit her home town Yuriev with her son. She left Russia several years before to pursue her international career. Her son, who follows her around the world, reproaches her for not showing enough interest in him. When they arrive in Yuriev, it proves to be a quite inhospitable place, where time seems to have stopped several decades ago. Suddenly Lyuba’s son disappears…

If Armando Iannucci’s political farce about the road to war through the corridors of power weren’t so funny, it would be utterly terrifying. When a British cabinet minister, Simon Foster, comments publicly that he thinks war is “unforeseeable,” the result is an immediate bollocking from Malcolm Tucker, the prime minister’s testy bulldog pushing for war. Unable to clarify his position, Simon is sent to Washington, where, trying desperately to be important, he meets Karen Clark, a U.S. State Department official, and General Miller, who see him as a transatlantic partner in building a consensus against war. They search for a secret war committee, led by Karen’s hawkish colleague, Linton Barwick. And as farce demands, all parties eventually converge for a climactic shuffle between rooms, in this case at the United Nations.

Andreas Dresen’s Cloud 9 opens with a frankly graphic (but not exploitative) scene involving a man and woman in their advanced years having raucous sex, setting the tone for an intense, emotional and surprising film.

Warsaw International Film Festival Programme

“On the one hand, this is a story about a relationship between a mother and a son.

It’s a story about a strong woman who, placed in an unexpected situation, tries to break through the thick wall of her own egotism. It’s a story of a woman who is being re-born as a mother. It’s also the story of Russia losing its identity, then finding it again” Director’s Statement

Wickedly sardonic and filled with secrets, lies, leaks, plugs, and faulty intelligence and walls, In the Loop leads us behind closed doors to reveal bungling bureaucrats entangled in petty rivalries and obsequious aides jockeying for favour.

Sundance Film Festival Programme

The scene is the spark that sets a love triangle aflame. Inge lives happily in a faceless East Berlin housing complex with her long-time husband Werner, a stoic type devoted to recordings of steam trains. Inge does clothing repairs, and upon delivering a mended pair of pants to Karl, tumbles into his arms. Her husband and daughter are horrified and feel betrayed, emotions Inge doesn’t quite understand. At this stage in life, her desires, no matter how selfish, should be valid. The pain and joy expressed by these characters is so real and distinct as to make us look into our own souls to remember those who we may have hurt by our own acts of love. That sense of spiritual catharsis brings us back to the film’s oblique, utopian title.

• Andreas Dresen will be in attendance at this screening. Presented in co-operation with the Goethe-Institut Irland.

• Armando Ianucci will be in attendance at this screening.

Print Source: m-appeal Producer: Uliana Savelieva Screenplay: Yuri Arabov

46 • Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009

Print Source: Optimum Releasing Producers: Kevin Loader, Adam Tandy Screenplay: Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche

Print Source: Goethe-Institut Irland Producer: Peter Rommel Screenplay: Andreas Dresen, Cooky Ziesche, Laila Stieler, Jörg Hauschild

The Housemaid

Valentino: The Last Emperor

American Teen

Friday 13 February IFI 1 / 6.30pm

Fri 13 Feb / Screen 1 / 6.50pm Mon 16 Feb / Movies@Dundrum / 8pm

Friday 13 February Cineworld 9 / 8.00pm

Director: Kim Ki-young 1960 / South Korea / 110 minutes

Director: Matt Tyraneur 2008 / USA / 96 minutes

Director: Nanette Burstein 2007 / USA / 95 minutes

Principal Cast: Lee Eun-shim, Ju Jeung-nyeo, Kim Jin-kyu

Principal Cast: Valentino Garavani, Giancarlo Giammetti

A consensus pick as one of the top three Korean films of all time, Kim Ki-young’s masterpiece The Housemaid occupies a place all its own within Golden Age Korean cinema.

A domestic thriller that builds in intensity right up until its startling resolution, the film doubles as a manic tour-de-force and a cutting satire of the aspirations and values of modern society.

He stands vindicated as one of the great arbiters of twentieth-century design. A master technician, Valentino never forgot to keep women and men beautiful in his clothes. This documentary, spanning the period between Valentino’s seventieth birthday and his final couture show, is of course concerned with showing his contributions to his field.

Based on a contemporary news story, the film focuses on a traditional four-member family which has just moved into a two-storey home and hired a housemaid. However, soon an incident occurs which motivates the maid to plot a dreadful revenge, and the Confucian order of the household comes crashing down at the hands of the surreptitious housemaid.

The two-storey home in which Kim sets his film acts as a symbol for Korea’s modernising middle class, yet behind the placid surface we see darker, more primitive elements penetrating into the family’s space: construction workers intruding on their daily lives, rats running amok, and the housemaid herself, wreaking havoc with envy and sexual forthrightness.

But the film actually aims not for the head, but the heart. At the centre is a love story: the fifty-year relationship between Valentino Clemente Ludovico Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti, his business partner, lover, best friend and confidante. This careful lifting of the veil gives us a sense of the unusual strength and courage these remarkable men needed to navigate the brutal world of egos and high finance – and to do so together.

This emotionally rich backbone contextualizes Valentino’s relationship with fame. Indeed, his pieces are objects of glamour, to be sure, yet possess an attention to detail and delicacy that speaks to a gentle, loving soul behind the scenes.

American Teen intimately follows the lives of four teenagers in one small town in Indiana through their senior year of high school. Using cinema vérité footage, interviews, and animation, it presents a candid portrait of being 17 and all that goes with it. We see the insecurities, the cliques, the jealousies, the first loves and heartbreaks, the experimentation with sex and alcohol, the parental pressures, and the struggle to make profound decisions about the future.

Nanette Burstein filmed daily for 10 months, developing a remarkably close rapport with these students and their families. The kids open up in her presence and lay bare their lives. The end result is a film that goes beyond the stereotypes of high school – the nerd and the jock, the homecoming queen and the arty misfit – to capture the complexity of young people trying to make their way into adulthood.

Sundance Film Festival Programme

• Introduced by Thierry Fremaux, Artistic Director of Cannes Film International Festival.

Print Source: Cineteca di Bologna Producer: Kim Ki-young Screenplay: Kim Ki-young

Print Source: Celluloid Dreams Producer: Matt Kapp

Print Source: Optimum Releasing Producers: Jordan Roberts, Nanette Burstein, Eli Gonda, Chris Huddleson Screenplay: Nanette Burstein

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 47

Black Sea (Mar Nero)

Hush

O’Horten

Fri 13 Feb / Movies@Dundrum / 8pm Sun 15 Feb / Screen 1 / 8.30pm

Friday 13 February Screen 2 / 8.40pm

Friday 13 February Screen 1 / 8.50pm

Director: Federico Bondi 2008 / Italy / Romania / France / 95 minutes

Director: Mark Tonderai 2008 / United Kingdom / 92 minutes

Director: Bent Hamer 2008 / Norway / 90 minutes

Principal Cast: William Ash, Christine Bottomley

Principal Cast: Bård Owe, Ghita Nørby, Espen Skjønberg, Henny Moan, Bjørn Floberg

A tired Zakes Abbot drives along a familiar stretch of rain-drenched motorway with his girlfriend Beth asleep in the passenger seat. He misses his turning and in the process cuts off a lorry, narrowly avoiding an accident. The enraged lorry driver then swerves violently ahead of him with the back panel of the truck swinging up to momentarily reveal a horrific sight – a terrified young woman chained in a cage.

Award-winning Norwegian writer-director Bent Hamer’s O’Horten is a whimsical and often surreal foray into the absurd irrationalities of the mind.

Principal Cast: Ilaria Occhini, Dorotheea Petre, Maia Morgenstern

After the death of her husband, an elderly lady is forced by her family to have a live-in careworker look after her in her home in Florence. The care worker is a young Romanian woman, eager to please but the lady is untrusting and bitter that her son and his family are running her life by remote control. Gradually, the two women begin to connect with each other and share their very different experiences of life. Through dayto-day trials and tribulations they begin to trust each other, but then the young woman learns that her husband back home has lost his job and disappeared.

This is a slow burning, intimate film which features a brilliant duet of acting between the two lead performances. Black Sea is delightful in its observational detail, its great good humour and authenticity in reflecting the realities of Eastern European immigration into the heart of the traditional Italian family.

Adrian Wootton, London Film Festival Programme

Zakes stares in disbelief and proceeds to tell the now fully awake Beth what he thinks he’s just seen. However, tensions between the couple begin to flare when Zakes discovers a suspicious missed call on her phone. When the pair stop at a service station, Zakes discovers that Beth herself has gone missing and soon comes to realise she may have become the next victim.

This is a striking muddy-hued debut by British director Mark Tonderai who manages to hit every note in the chiller song book with absolute precision and takes the audience on one hell of a scary ride.

After forty years, sixty-seven-year-old Odd Horten retires from his position as a train engineer. With his new-found freedom, Horten finds it increasingly difficult to adapt to his new existence as a pensioner. But. instead of sitting back and enjoying his wellearned retirement, he finds himself wedged in the centre of gradually more awkward affairs.

Horten becomes increasingly involved in the bizarrely unconventional as he meets new friends, rekindles old flames, wears sexy red high heels and finds himself accepting a ride from a blindfolded automobile driver.

The film injects a comedically straightfaced sense of humour into its humane, sympathetic narrative and appropriately inventive stylistic sensibility. Owe’s intriguingly amiable appearance, well-intentioned attitude and overall charismatic demeanour provide an even greater sense of elegance and vitality, making O’Horten an all the more gratifying and unique cinematic experience.

Raindance Film Festival Programme Dimitri Eipides, Toronto International Film Festival Programme Print Source: Film Kairos S.r.l.

Producer: Francesco Pamphili Screenplay: Ugo Chiti, Federico Bondi

48 • Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009

Print Source: Optimum Releasing Producer: Zoe Stewart, Robin Gutch, Mark Herbert, Colin Pons Screenplay: Mark Tonderai

Print Source: Artificial Eye Producer: Bent Hamer Screenplay: Bent Hamer

Disgrace

Revolution

The Grocer’s Son (Le Fils de l’épicier)

Fri 13 Feb / Cineworld 17 / 8.50pm Tues 17 Feb / Movies@Dundrum / 8pm

Saturday 14 February Cineworld 9 / 1.45pm

Saturday 14 February Screen 1 / 2.00pm

Director: Steve Jacobs 2008 / Australia / 120 minutes

Director: Hugh Hudson 1985 / United Kingdom / USA / Norway / 122 minutes

Director: Eric Guirado 2007 / France / 96 minutes

Principal Cast: John Malkovich, Jessica Haines, Eriq Ebouaney, Fiona Press

J.M.Coetzee’s Booker Prize-winning novel Disgrace has been recognized as an unflinching look at the lingering demons of apartheid. Adapted for the screen by director Steve Jacobs and starring John Malkovich, the story now unfolds in a cinematic rendering that heightens the tragedy, the beauty and the humanity of Coetzee’s brilliant original.

David Lurie is a professor living in Cape Town. When he destroys his own university career through a foolhardy and almost entirely one-sided affair with one of his students, he flees the city to spend some time with his daughter on her farm.

However, David’s worst fears about her isolation are realised when father and daughter are savagely attacked by three black youths. After the initial horror begins to pass, David is confounded by a whole new level of disbelief and impotence when he learns that one of the youth is a relative of the hitherto trusted worker Petrus.

Cameron Bailey, Toronto International Film Festival Programme

Principal Cast: Al Pacino, Donald Sutherland, Natassja Kinski

Director Hugh Hudson’s most complex and underrated picture, Revolution (1985), was misunderstood and unjustly treated on its first appearance over twenty years ago.

Seeing it again in the director’s slightly revised version, it now strikes me as a masterpiece – profound, poetic and original.

Hudson’s film should take its place among the great movies about history and th experience of individual citizens living in times of dramatic social change.

Revolution follows the contrasted fortunes of three people caught up in the social and political turbulence of the American War of Independence - the film’s true rebel, a middle-class New York idealist defies her Tory parents by throwing in her lot with the Revolution; an illiterate fur trapper is cheated by both sides as he seeks to protect his one remaining son; while a martinet English sergeant-major soldiers on year after year, attempting to do his duty and serve his paternalistic king. A colourful, ironic epic, the time has come for Revolution to find the appreciative audience it deserves.

Philip French, The Observer • Hugh Hudson will participate in a Q&A after the screening.

Print Source: Fortissimo Films Producers: Anna-Maria Monticelli, Emile Sherman, Steve Jacobs Screenplay: Anna-Maria Monticelli, based on the novel

by J. M. Coetzee

Print Source: Warner Bros.

Producer: Irwin Winkler Screenplay: Robert Dillon

Principal Cast: Nicolas Cazalé, Clotilde Hesme, Daniel Duval

The rolling countryside of Provence may be a dream vacation spot, but it is the last place in the world that Antoine (Nicolas Cazalé), the sullen 30-year-old protagonist of The Grocer’s Son, would like to be. In this French variation of the fable of the prodigal son, Antoine reluctantly returns to his rural hometown after 10 years in the big city when his father (Daniel Duval) has a heart attack.

This small gem of a film, a surprise hit in France, is the second feature directed by Éric Guirado, who prepared for it by filming portraits of travelling tradesmen in southern and central France. For 18 months he focused on mobile grocers in Corsica, the Pyrenees and the Alps. As the movie affectionately observes the gruff, selfreliant customers, some of whom hobble to the van on canes, it has a documentary-like realism. You grow to respect these hardy, weather-beaten people who lived their whole lives close to the land The Grocer’s Son is a triumphant accumulation of such quirky, perfectly observed details.

Stephen Holden, New York Times • Éric Guirado will be in attendance at this screening.

Print Source: ICA Films Producers: Miléna Poylo, Gilles Sacuto Screenplay: Eric Guirado, Florence Vignon

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 49

Savoy Special Presentation Flame & Citron (Flammen & Citronen) Saturday 14 February Savoy 1 / 11.00am Director: Ole Christian Madsen 2008 / Denmark / Germany / 100 minutes Principal Cast: Thure Lindhardt, Mads Mikkelsen, Stine Stengade, Christian Berkel, Hanns Zischler, Peter Muggind

Unlike director Ole Christian Madsen’s intimate domestic dramas Kira’s Reason and Prague, Flame & Citron is a sprawling World War II epic about the Danish resistance against Nazi occupation. In terms of sensibility, however, the film is very much in harmony with Madsen’s earlier work, driven by his fine-tuned awareness of uncomfortable truths, deceit and betrayal.

His heroes are Bent (Thure Lindhart) and Jørgen (Mads Mikkelsen), better known in Denmark by their code names Flame & Citron. As the key assassins for the Resistance, they were responsible for eliminating dozens of Danish collaborators and, eventually, Nazi officers. But as Madsen shows, Flame and Citron were not conventional heroic types, nor were their actions as clear-cut as several generations of Danes believed.

Inspired in part by Jean-Pierre Melville’s legendary L’Armée des Ombres, Flame & Citron is based on the premise that those who defied the Nazis lived on the margins, the kind of people who were looked down upon before the war and had absolutely nothing to lose. Flame (a reference to his blazing red hair) zis at the very least a sociopath. He enjoys – possibly relishes – killing. Citron is a wounded, morose and completely unemployable alcoholic and addict.

As his wife tells him at a dismal birthday party for their young daughter, he wasn’t much of a husband before the war either.

The other principals are Hoffman (Christian Berkel), a leader in the Gestapo; Aksel Winther (Peter Mygind), the Resistance leader who gives the duo their marching orders; and Ketty Selmer (Stine Stengade), with whom Flame is in love even though both he and Citron are suspicious of her. None of these relationships are exactly transparent, however, and the political situation encourages all manner of treachery and realpolitik.

As we now know, many of the heroic tales about World War II were myths.

Shady deals were made and rampant profiteering was common, frequently at high levels of government. Trenchant and relevant (the film evokes numerous parallels to the current situation in Iraq), Flame & Citron is courageous, complex and gripping, and has already become one of the highest-grossing pictures in Danish film history.

Steve Gravestock, Toronto International Film Festival Programme

Print Source: Metrodome Distribution Producer: Lars Brehdo Rabek Screenplay: Lars K. Andersen, Ole Christian Madsen

Dot (Nokta)

Flash of Genius

Good

Saturday 14 February Screen 2 / 2.00pm

Saturday 14 February Screen 2 / 4.00pm

Saturday 14 February Screen 1 / 4.30pm

Director: Derviş Zaim 2008 / Turkey / 75 minutes

Director: Marc Abraham 2008 / USA / 119 minutes

Principal Cast: Mehmet Ali Nuroğlu, Serhat Kılıç, Settar Tanrıöğen

Principal Cast: Greg Kinnear, Lauren Graham, Dermot Mulroney, Alan Alda

Director: Vicente Amorim 2007 / United Kingdom / Germany / 96 minutes

Derviş Zaim’s follow-up to the acclaimed Waiting for Paradise, which incorporated traditional miniature painting as an art, recounts the tale of a man who is tormented by a crime he once committed, and now seeks to redeem himself.

Persuaded by a friend, Ahmet is reluctantly involved in the theft of an antique and invaluable Quran. However, this act pushes him into unwanted and unfamiliar territory.

Based on the true story of college professor and part-time inventor Robert Kearns’ long battle with the U.S. automobile industry, Flash of Genius tells the tale of one man whose fight to receive recognition for his ingenuity would come at a heavy price. But this determined engineer refused to be silenced and he took on corporate titans in a battle that nobody thought he could win.

The film is action-packed throughout, with the majority of scenes advancing along an axis of crime and punishment and organically incorporating one of Turkey’s traditional art forms, calligraphy, into the story. Strikingly, calligraphy marks both language and content in the film’s structure as a single, fluid shot. The taut script references questions of faith, God and principles of indigenous practices and offers a striking insight into Turkish history, art and culture.

London Turkish Film Festival Programme • Producer Baran Seyhan will be in attendance at this screening.

Print Source: Sarmasık Sanatlar Producer: Baran Seyhan, Dervis Zaim Screenplay: Dervis Zaim

52 • Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009

The Kearns were a typical 1960s Detroit family, trying to live their version of the American Dream. Local university professor Bob married teacher Phyllis and, by their mid-thirties, had six kids who brought them a hectic but satisfying Midwestern experience. When Bob invents a device that would eventually be used by every car in the world, the Kearns think they have struck gold. But their aspirations are dashed after the auto giants who embraced Bob’s creation unceremoniously shunned the man who invented it.

Bob becomes a man obsessed with justice and this everyday David will try the unthinkable: to bring Goliath to his knees.

Print Source: Optimum Releasing Producers: Gary Barber, Roger Bimbaum, Michael Lieber Screenplay: Philip Railsback, based on an article by John Seabrook

Principal Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Jason Issacs, Jodie Whittaker, Mark Strong, Gemma Jones

Vicente Amorim’s deliberately provocative Good asks a simple question: what turned normal “good” Germans into people capable of sending millions to the gas chambers during the Second World War? John Halder – played by an outstanding Viggo Mortensen - is the “good” German: a shy but decent retiring professor of literature who accepts a paying research job which brings him to the attention of the Nazis. His new position turns into much more as John finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into the Nazi regime. Subtle pressure is applied, and gradually meek disinterest turns into cooperation and then collusion.

As John transforms, the tug-of-war in this intellectual’s personal life is painful to witness.

But it is his lifelong friendship with Maurice (Jason Isaacs), a Jewish psychiatrist, that cuts deepest. As John sheds his professorial jacket for the brownshirt of the Nazi party, he finds that life, and personal choices, carry far more weight than he ever imagined.

Piers Handling, Toronto International Film Festival

Print Source: Lionsgate UK Producer: Miriam Segal Screenplay: John Wrathall, based on the play by C.P. Taylor

Pirate for the Sea

Cadillac Records

Burn the Bridges (Quemar las Naves)

Saturday 14 February Cineworld 9 / 4.40pm

Saturday 14 February Cineworld 17 / 6.00pm

Saturday 14 February Screen 2 / 6.20pm

Director: Ron Colby 2008 / USA / 99 minutes

Director: Darnell Martin 2007 / USA / 109 minutes

Director: Francisco Franco 2007 / Mexico / 105 minutes

Principal Cast: Beyoncé Knowles, Adrien Brody, Jeffrey Wright, Gabrielle Union

Principal Cast: Irene Azuela, Ángel Onésimo Nevares, Juan Carlos Barreto, Bernardo Benítez, Ricardo Blume

Cadillac Records is Darnell Martin’s rollicking and insightful celebration of Chicago blues in its hectic golden age. The film is a group portrait of a remarkable, volatile constellation of artists Chuck Berry (Mos Def), Etta James (Beyoncé Knowles) and Howlin’ Wolf (Eamonn Walker).

Theatre-director-turned-filmmaker Francisco Franco’s immensely assured debut circles around brother Sebastián (Ángel Onésimo Nevares) and sister Helena (Irene Azuela) - both entertaining incestuous ideas about the other - compelled to care for their dying mother in the family’s decaying colonial mansion. When violent tough guy Juan (Bernardo Benítez) insinuates himself into their lives, a different flavour of eroticism begins to permeate–and perhaps poison–the mansion’s airy rooms.

He’s the most controversial figure in the environmental movement, and the most compelling character you’ll see on screen this year. Paul Watson takes the law into his own hands on the open seas, confronting, by any nonviolent means necessary, the hunters who indiscriminately slaughter whales, seals and sharks, along with complicit governments and softspined environmental organisations.

Ron Colby’s urgent, poignant and surprisingly funny documentary spends years aboard Watson’s lo-fi ship the Farley Mowat, as the crew of rugged/ ragged volunteers do their best to save the ocean from the accelerating demands of a globalized marketplace. With its handheld camera (including footage shot by Watson and crew) and potent story of a hero in the making, the utterly compelling Pirate for the Sea has the immediacy of a battlefield report and the grand vision of an epic poem.

Telluride Film Festival Programme • Director Ron Colby will be in attendance at this screening.

Print Source: Artists Confederacy Producers: Ron Colby, Patricia van Ryker Screenplay: Ron Colby

Martin’s impressive direction is enriched by the skill and verve from this prodigious ensemble. These musical innovators are gathered together — promoted, exploited and given shiny new Caddies with heavy strings attached — by Leonard Chess (Adrien Brody), a Jewish entrepreneur in postwar Chicago who sees ‘race music’ as a potential gold mine. That it also turns out to be an agent of wholesale cultural transformation — an old song observes that the blues had a baby, and they called it rock ’n’ roll — does not faze him in the least.

Though it never pushes its tone toward overt black comedy, the film carries strong reverberations from the earliest and latest films of Marco Bellocchio–the wild nature of family units, the powerful position held by the youngest male and the urge for freedom in a heavy Catholic atmosphere, all captured with vibrant and brawny cinematic technique.

Cadillac Records is worth seeing for the music alone, indeed Beyoncé’s interpretations of Ms. James’s hits — “At Last” and “I’d Rather Go Blind,” in particular — are downright revelatory.

Print Source: Sony Pictures Releasing Producer: Andrew Lack, Sofia Sondervan Screenplay: Darnell Martin

Print Source: Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografia (IMCINE) Producers: Francisco Franco, Laura Imperiale, María Novaro Screenplay: Francisco Franco, María Renée Prudencio

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 53

Bronson

Three Miles North of Molkom

Derek

Saturday 14 February Screen 1 / 6.30pm

Saturday 14 February IFI 1 / 6.30pm

Saturday 14 February Cineworld 9 / 7.10pm

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn 2008 / United Kingdom / 92 minutes

Directors: Robert Cannan, Corinna Villari-McFarlane 2007 / United Kingdom / 112 minutes

Director: Isaac Julien 2008 / United Kingdom / 76 minutes

Three Miles North of Molkom follows a group of seven individuals who have met for the first time at Ängsbacka – an annual festival that takes place deep in the forests of Sweden, about three miles north of the town of Molkom. The festival is described as “an awakening to who or what is actually experiencing this moment”, and the group is a microcosm of the backpackers, celebrities and freethinkers for whom Ängsbacka provides an intense programme of new age therapies including firewalking, Shamanism and tantric exercise.

British artist filmmaker Isaac Julien collaborated with the Academy Awardwinning actress Tilda Swinton to create this collage-like biography of the late Derek Jarman, a maverick film artist whose short films were among the first to be shown in London art galleries.

Principal Cast: Tom Hardy, Amanda Burton, Matt King

Nicolas Winding Refn’s portrait of notorious lifer and the UK’s ‘most violent prisoner’, Charles Bronson, is an ambitious and brave attempt to create a biopic of a man who has spent 34 years of his life in prison, and 28 of those in solitary confinement. Whilst confronting the extreme brutality which has characterised Bronson’s life, Winding Refn endeavours to get to the heart of such a desperate existence. Born Michael Peterson, Bronson’s ambition was simply to be famous. With a limited sphere of opportunities, the criminal world offered a theatre in which he could cultivate his stylised persona.

Physically transformed, Tom Hardy gives an extraordinarily visceral and psychological performance as Bronson, his laconic voice-over serving as the framework for the Bronson cabaret. In showing the repetitiveness of Bronson’s existence punctuated by finely choreographed violent set pieces, Winding Refn continually brings the focus back to the mundanity of the man and the terror of the myth.

Sarah Lutton, London Film Festival Programme

Print Source: Vertigo Films Producers: Rupert Preston, Danny Hansford Screenplay: Brock Norman Brock, Nicolas Winding Refn

54 • Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009

Co-directors Robert Cannan and Corinna Villari-McFarlane unflinchingly record the group exposing themselves to their insecurities, to reality and to the occasional fast-moving guru. Although there are some very funny moments, it’s hard to ignore the complete openness of the participants, and that leaves you feeling somehow refreshed.

Whether that’s because you’ve found your chosen tree, or are glad you don’t have to, is up to you.

• The directors Robert Cannan and Corinna Villari-McFarlane will be in attendance at this screening.

Print Source: Metrodome Distribution Producers: Robert Cannan, Corinna Villari-McFarlane

Featuring: Derek Jarman, Tilda Swinton

Jarman was one of the outstanding representatives of British Independent Cinema of the period 1970–1990. However, although he was known to a large audience mainly as a filmmaker, he saw himself as an artist, in whose interdisciplinary and highly autobiographical oeuvre film, painting, stage design and writing assumed equal prominence. In his tireless struggle for gay rights and AIDS education and awareness, Jarman’s main priority was “to unite Art with Life and vice versa” His wholly original feature films (often starring Swinton) reimagined narrative while helping to establish a canon for Queer Cinema. Using rare interviews with the artist, archival films and photographs, excerpts from Jarman’s films (many of which are rarely seen), and new footage scripted by Swinton, Julien provides a spirited view into the mind of an ever-surprising and adventurous artist.

Print Source: Isaac Julien Studio Producers: Colin McCabe, Eliza Mellor Screenplay: Tilda Swinton

Confessions of a Shopaholic

The Song of Sparrows

Cowards (Cobardes)

Saturday 14 February Movies@Dundrum / 8.00pm

Sat 14 Feb / Screen 1 / 8.30pm Mon 16 Feb / Screen 1 / 4.30pm

Sat 14 Feb / Screen 2 / 8.50pm Tues 17 Feb / Screen 2 / 4.00pm

Director: P. J. Hogan 2008 / USA / 121 minutes

Director: Majid Majidi 2009 / Iran / 96 minutes

Directors: José Corbacho, Juan Cruz 2008 / Spain / 89 minutes

Principal Cast: Isla Fisher, Hugh Dancy, Krysten Ritter, Joan Cusack, John Goodman

Principal Cast: Reza Naji, Maryam Akbari, Kamran Dehghan, Hamed Aghzai, Shabnam Aklaghi, Neshat Nazari.

Principal Cast: Lluís Homar, Eduardo Garé, Eduardo Espinilla

Rebecca Bloomwood (Isla Fisher) is a sweet and charming New York City girl who has a tiny, little problem that is rapidly turning into a big problem: she’s hopelessly addicted to shopping and drowning in a sea of debt. While Rebecca has dreams of working in the upper echelons of a top fashion magazine, she simply cannot quite get her foot in the door - that is, until she snags a job as an advice columnist for a new financial magazine published by the same company.

Iran’s only Oscar-nominated director Majid Majidi (Children of Heaven) returns to form with The Song of Sparrows. The deeply humanistic story, set among his society’s underprivileged, explores how capitalism and technology corrupt humankind, making us lose our hopes of spiritual purity as well as our all-important connections to family, friends and nature. Protagonist Karim (Reza Naji, winner of the Best Actor prize at the Berlin Film Festival), an ostrich wrangler at a ranch in a rural area west of Tehran, loses his job when one of his charges escapes.

When he travels to the city to replace his eldest daughter’s broken hearing aid, he’s mistaken for a motorcycle taxi driver and begins to transport businessmen (all shouting into cellphones) and consumer products through the heavy traffic. The passengers and places he encounters start to transform his generous, honest nature, much to the distress of his wife. After Karim suffers an accident that leaves him unable to work, his sense of faith and purpose is ultimately restored.

Fourteen-year-old Gaby, known as Carrot for his ginger hair, is being bullied at school by Guille and his gang. He chooses to handle the events his way without involving his parents, Merche (Elvira Mínguez) and Joaquín (Antonio de la Torre), who also suffer troubles and turmoils in their own respective jobs. For Guille there is parental pressure to be top of the class and that means always letting everyone else know who is boss.

Print Source: Fortissimo Films Producer: Majid Majidi Screenplay: Majid Majidi, Mehran Kashani.

Print Source: Filmax Producers: Julio Fernández, Tadeo Villalba hijo Screenplay: José Corbacho, Juan Cruz

Overnight, her column becomes hugely popular, which results in Rebecca becoming rapidly famous. But when her compulsive shopping and growing debt issues catch up on her, threatening to destroy her love life and derail her career, she struggles to keep it all from spiraling out of control – and is ultimately forced to extreme and hilarious efforts to keep her past from ruining her future.

Print Source: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Ireland Producer: Jerry Bruckheimer Screenplay: Tim Firth, Tracey Jackson, Kayla Alpert, based on the book by Sophie Kinsella

From the writer-directors of Tapas, comes a sensitive treatment of bullying both in the school playground and in the wider social landscape in which the boys and their families operate. Probing the boundaries between aggressor and aggrieved, victim and perpetrator, the film seeks to present the evolving situation from the boys’ point of view. The result is a thoughtful, intelligent treatment of adolescent politics in a climate of corporate fear where nothing can be taken for granted.

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 55

French Gala The Class (Entre les Murs) Saturday 14 February Cineworld 17 / 8.10pm Director: Laurent Cantet 2007 / France / 128 minutes Principal Cast: François Bégaudeau, Franck Keita, Esmeralda Ouertani, Rachel Regulier, Jean-Michel Simonet

There will not be a better film this year than Laurent Cantet’s The Class, which focuses on a year in a schoolroom presided over by a young teacher, Marin (François Bégaudeau). The school is in a rough Parisian neighborhood and the student body is mixed racially— black, Arab, Asian. Marin’s particular challenge is, as with every teacher, trying to instill a love of learning in these often recalcitrant adolescents, but the particular setting and makeup of his charges renders his situation extraordinary. Extraordinary, too, are the ways he deals with the students, never pandering to them and offering a kind of tough love as he tries to give them all a sense of self-worth, as well as proper speech in a France where traditional language is dying.

The film is based on a book by Bégaudeau, recounting his own teaching experience, and he and Cantet discovered their students in a Paris school, holding extensive workshops with them to probe their characters.

This all gives The Class a neardocumentary feel, making it a unique interweaving of fiction and reality, as when some real-life parents of the kids are also brought into the story.

Sometimes these encounters are benignly rewarding, as when a Chinese boy (Wei Huang) receives praise for his efforts, but others are stormier, like that with a stern matron and her son, Souleymane (Franck Keita), the eternal class troublemaker, whose antics have him facing expulsion, as well as a daunting parental decision to send him back to Africa. This incident escalates when, in a fit of pique, Marin verbally attacks two girls who exhibited a lack of respect during their monitoring of a teacher’s meeting to decide Souleymane’s fate. In a trice, all the bonhomie Marin has worked so hard to achieve vanishes, and we are again at war, both generationally and culturally.

With febrile intelligence and staggering humanity Cantet makes you truly care about his people in a blessedly unhistrionic way that harkens back to the greatest work of the Italian neorealists.

David Noh, Film Journal International Print Source: Artificial Eye Producers: Carole Scotta, Caroline Benjo, Barbara Letellier, Simon Arnal, Carole Scotta, Caroline Benjo, Barbara Letellier, Simon Arnal Screenplay: François Bégaudeau

• Winner Palme D’Or Cannes Film Festival 2008 • Director Laurent Cantet will be in attendance at this screening.

I Sell The Dead

The Letter Never Sent

Gitmek (My Marlon and Brando)

Saturday 14 February Cineworld 9 / 9.00pm

Sunday 15 February Screen 1 / 2.00pm

Sunday 15 February Screen 2 / 2.00pm

Director: Glenn McQuaid 2008 / USA / 80 minutes

Director: Mikhail Kalatozov 1959 / Russia / 97 minutes

Director: Huseyin Karabey 2008 / Turkey / 93 minutes

Principal Cast: Dominic Monaghan, Larry Fessenden, Ron Perlman, Angus Scrimm, Joel Garland

Principal Cast: Tatyana Samojlova, Innokenti Smoktunovsky, Galina Kozhakina, Vasili Livanov

Principal Cast: Ayca Damgaci, Hama Ali Kahn, Cengiz Bozkurt, Omer Sahin

18th century justice has finally caught up to grave robbers Arthur Blake and Willie Grimes. With the spectre of the guillotine looming over him, young Blake confides in visiting clergyman Father Duffy, recounting fifteen years of adventure in the resurrec­ tion trade.

The third collaboration between the phenomenal director/cinematographer duo of Kalatozov and Sergey Urusevskiy (The Cranes Are Flying, I Am Cuba), this film traces four geologists’ search for a diamond mine as they face natural disasters in the merciless Siberian wilderness, rendered in all its overwhelming power by an extraordinary, unhinged camera.

Based on true events, Turkish actress Ayca Damgaci plays herself in this dramatic account of love and heartbreak, set during the US invasion of Iraq. Ayca met Kurdish Iraqi actor Hama Ali on a film set, shortly before the 2003 war, and they fell deeply, passionately in love, before having to return to their respective homes - Ayca to Istanbul, Hama to Suleymaniye, a village near the Iraq/Iran border. But as Ayca watches news reports from Iraq she decides, against all advice, to make her way to Suleymaniye and Hama.

His tale leads from humble beginnings as a young boy stealing trinkets from corpses, to a partnership with seasoned ghoul Willie Grimes as they hunt creatures unwilling to accept their place in the ground. Co-stars Dominic Monaghan and Larry Fessenden are an ideal match, as together they ensure every comic beat is on the mark while cult horror favourite Ron Perlman brings his own distinctive flavour to the ghoulish escapades.The colorful and peculiar history of Grimes and Blake is one filled with adventure, horror, and vicious rivalries that threaten to put all involved in the very graves they’re trying to pilfer.

• Director will be in attendance at this screening.

Print Source: Glass Eye Pics Producers: Larry Fessenden, Peter Phok Screenplay: Glenn McQuaid

58 • Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009

Success comes at a price: before the team can return to civilization, they are trapped by a vast forest fire. Probably no other filmmaking team inspires more cries of “How’d they do that?” than Mikhail Kalatozov and cinematographer/cameraman Sergei Urushevsky. The camerawork here is spectacular, and the scenes of the forest fire are simply unforgettable The style of direction, writing, and cinematography is a prime example of sheer Russian heroism. These are patriots who will do anything, no matter how difficult or dangerous, to advance Soviet industry and thereby become famous for their historical, important discoveries, through pioneering the wilds of Siberia to discover diamonds.

Print Source: Seagull Films Screenplay: Grigori Koltunov, Valeri Osipov, Viktor Rozov,

Setting off on her journey, she embarks on a quest that will take her through some of the most dangerous territory in the region.

The pair finally agree to meet in Iran - but events take a sudden and dramatic turn.

‘Gitmek’ has justly attracted widespread acclaim, picking up awards at the Jerusalem, Sarajevo and Tribeca Film Festivals this year for its compelling narrative and emotionally honest performances.

• Director Huseyin Karabey will be in attendance at this screening.

Print Source: Insomnia Sales Producers: Lucinda Englehart, Huseyin Karabey, Sophie Lorant Screenplay: Ayca Damgaci, Huseyin Karabey

Special Presentation Gran Torino Sunday 15 February Savoy 1 / 11.00am Director: Clint Eastwood 2008 / USA / 116 minutes Principal Cast: Clint Eastwood, Christopher Carley, Geraldine Hughes, Bee Vang, Ahney Her

At 78, perhaps the only actor in the history of American cinema to convincingly kick the butt of a guy 60 years his junior, the hard-headed, snarly mouthed Clint Eastwood of the 1970s comes growling back to life in Gran Torino.

Eastwood plays Kowalski, a lifelong auto worker after his Army stint. His racist mutterings, are blunt and nasty, but Eastwood grunts them out in an over-the-top way that provokes laughs.

Particularly irksome is the family next door, a granny, a mother and two teenagers, retiring boy Thao and more assertive girl Sue. Visitors often congregate at the home, and Kowalski imagines them eating dog and pursuing other unwholesome activities. But the sole genuinely unsavoury element is a bunch of Hmong gangbangers hot to recruit the leader’s cousin, Thao. “Get off my lawn,” Kowalski menacingly snarls when some commotion spills onto his property in what will no doubt become one of the film’s trademark lines, and the cagey coot makes it clear he’ll be gunning for the hot-rodding hoodlums if they bother him again.

The pivot in the lively, neatly balanced screenplay has Asian gangsters forcing Thao to prove himself by stealing Kowalski’s cherry 1972 Gran Torino.

When the alert old soldier catches him at it, Thao’s tradition-minded family insists he work off his shame at the victim’s pleasure. Reluctantly at first, Kowalksi has him make repairs around the neighborhood, thereby initiating a quasi-father-son relationship between extremely unlikely prospects.

While Gran Torino is entirely of a piece with Eastwood’s other work, it also stands apart from his artful films of the past six years in its completely straightforward, unstudied style. To be sure, there are themes and understated points of view, most fundamentally about the need to get beyond racial and ethnic prejudice, the changing face of the nation and the future resting in the hands of today’s immigrants. In a way that clearly could not have been intended, Eastwood could be said to have inadvertently made the first film of the Obama era.

Todd McCarthy, Variety Print Source: Warner Bros Pictures International (Ireland) Producers: Clint Eastwood, Bill Gerber, Robert Lorenz Screenplay: Dave Johannson, Nick Schenk

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Helen

Opera (Ópera)

Gigantic

Sunday 15 February Screen 1 / 4.00pm

Sunday 15 February Screen 2 / 4.20pm

Sunday 15 February Cineworld 17 / 6.00pm

Directors: Christine Molloy, Joe Lawlor 2008 / Ireland / England / 77 minutes

Director: Juan Patricio Riveroll 2007 / Mexico / 88 minutes

Director: Matt Aselton 2008 / USA / 99 minutes

Principal Cast: Annie Townsend, Annie Melia, Dennis Jobling, Sonia Saville

Principal Cast: Arturo Ríos, Marina Magro Soto, Daniela Schmidt, Martín LaSalle

Principal Cast: Paul Dano, Zooey Deschanel, Ed Asner, Jane Alexander, John Goodman, Ian Roberts, Robert Stanton

Helen is a subtly drawn story of a young woman poised on the brink of adult life, and an auspicious feature debut for its writer-directors.

Dubliners Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor (also known as ‘Desperate Optimists’) adopt the same approach as in their series of nine short films, the Civic Life Series – shooting in 35mm scope in mainly long takes, featuring local non professional actors – but here add an all-important element of storytelling. When a young woman, Joy, disappears, the police ask for help in staging a reconstruction. Helen volunteers and is chosen, and does bear an uncanny resemblance to the missing girl.

Juan Patricio Riveroll’s poignant and understated slice-of-life drama Opera observes the unusual relationship that blossoms between two markedly different characters: a young Mexican girl named Marina (Marina Magro Soto) and a much older, distinguished writer named Pablo (Arturo Ríos) in the middle of authoring a tourist guide. Marina finds herself unexpectedly smitten with Pablo, and allows the infatuation to draw her away from home and on a lengthy road trip with the belletrist.

Brian Weathersby has a pretty ordinary life. He’s single and has a decent job at a mattress store that specializes in high-end Swedish merchandise. In reality, Brian is deeply dissatisfied with almost every aspect of his life, and spends much of his time pursuing his childhood dream of adopting a baby from China.

But whilst Joy had loving parents, a boyfriend and a wide circle of friends, Helen has been raised in care and is very much an outsider. The complexities and impact of ‘playing’ another on Helen’s life are fascinating and skillfully drawn, and newcomer Annie Townsend impresses with her understated performance in the title role. Where naturalism meets a controlled and beautifully composed aesthetic, Helen is a gentle, distinctive discovery.

A great deal of time passes wordlessly, but Marina and Pablo eventually have an encounter at a local bar (while en route) that provides a sudden and most unexpected shock. Meanwhile, numerous unresolved emotions lurk beneath the surface of the couple’s experience together.

Sandra Hebron, London Film Festival Programme

First-time filmmaker Matt Aselton has found a highly enjoyable, often funny and occasionally surreal way of asking some serious questions about commitment, family and the true nature of love.

Jane Schoettle, Toronto International Film Festival Programme

• Directors Christine Molloy & Joe Lawlor will be in attendance at this screening.

Print Source: New Wave Films Producers: Christine Molloy, Joe Lawlor Screenplay: Christine Molloy, Joe Lawlor

One day, Al Lolly walks into the mattress store, a rich, bristly bear of a man with a very bad back. On Brian’s advice, he orders the top-of-the-line mattress and stalks out, saying someone will be in later to arrange for delivery. That someone is Al’s daughter Harriet, who promptly falls asleep on the new bed. When she wakes to find that Brian has covered her with a blanket, she is touched, and takes tentative steps towards friendship and possible romance.

Print Source: Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografia (IMCINE) Producer: Juan Patricio Riveroll Screenplay: Juan Patricio Riveroll

Print Source: The Works Producers: Mindy Goldberg, Christine Vachon Screenplay: Adam Nagata, Matt Aselton

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 61

Dogging: A Love Story

Havar

Bigger, Stronger, Faster*

Sunday 15 February Cineworld 9 / 6.00pm

Sunday 15 February Screen 1 /6.10pm

Sunday 15 February Screen 2 / 6.10pm

Director: Simon Ellis 2008 / United Kingdom / 104 minutes

Director: Mehmet Guleryuz 2007 / Turkey / 73 minutes

Director: Christopher Bell 2007 / USA / 105 minutes

Principal Cast: Luke Treadaway, Kate Heppell, Michael Socha, Richard Riddell

Principal Cast: Cicek Tekdemir, Abdullah Tarhan, Eyup Agilday, Ramazan Ilten

Simon Ellis’ debut feature is an outrageous and often hilarious take on the pitfalls of finding love in the 21st century – albeit through the prism of dogging, a euphemism for engaging in sexual acts in public places.

The consecutive suicide incidents of young women in the south-eastern town of Batman aroused awareness, and it was only later that these suicides were uncovered as honour killings. Havar discusses this tragic issue focusing on a young woman named Havar who is rumoured to have gotten intimate with a young man.

Dan has a degree and a girlfriend but his life is a mess, lacking in ambition and direction as his attempts at becoming a journalist seem futile and his time is spent sleeping on a couch and chatting to women on the internet. His philandering flatmate Rob introduces Dan to the dogging scene which provides him with ample opportunity for a major newspaper story.

As he encounters an increasing number of bizarre and unlikely situations, Dan gradually sheds his inhibitions and embraces the risqué lifestyle until he encounters fellow thrill-seeker Laura. As Rob’s womanising threatens to scupper his own personal life, Dan begins to find what he least expected amongst the dogging scene: love. Set in Newcastle, Ellis’ debut is an exhilarating ride through the whys and wherefores of sex, monogamy, the breaking of habits and indeed, the joys of dogging.

Colm McAuliffe, JDIFF • Director Simon Ellis will be in attendance at this screening.

Print Source: Vertigo Films Producers: Alan Niblo, James Richardson Screenplay: Simon Ellis, Michael Groom

62 • Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009

Havar lives in Batman, notorious for its honour killings. While laundering in the river, Havar ‘loses’ her handkerchief to Sedat.

Her simple mistake assumes life or death proportions: she is branded a loose woman and her arranged husband shies away from marriage. Sedat begs forgiveness for the blunder but the rumours about her reach her cousin Şehmus, who has been promised to marry her. Şehmus pressures Havar’s father, provoking him to kill her. Havar is now the victim and her father is also her executioner.

Well known for his documentaries, Mehmet Guleryuz’s debut feature was shot with amateur actors from the region. The word ‘havar’ is also used as ‘scream’, ‘cry for help’, or ‘rebellion’ in the Batman region.

Director Christopher Bell explores America’s win-at-all-cost philosophy by examining the way his two brothers became members of the steroid subculture in an effort to realise their American dream.

Ingeniously beginning the film by harkening back to the mentality of the 1980s, where the heroes were Rambo, Conan, and Hulk Hogan, Bell recounts how these role models led him and his brothers into powerlifting and dreams of becoming all-star wrestlers.

Those dreams were soon shattered by the realisation that success in those fields required the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Bell uses his personal story as an entree into analysing the bigger issues that surround these drugs: ethics in sports; the health ramifications, both physical and psychological; as well as the mentality that fuels it all.

International Istanbul Film Festival Programme

The power of the film is the way Bell stays away from preconceptions and stereotypes and digs deeper to find the truth and concoct a fascinating, humorous, and poignant profile of one of the side effects of being American.

• Director Mehmet Guleryuz will be in attendance at this screening.

Sundance Film Festival Programme

Print Source: Güleryüz Film Producer: Mehmet Guleryuz Screenplay: Feza Sinar

Print Source: Verve Pictures Producers: Alexander Buono, Tamsin Rawady, Jim Czarnecki Screenplay: Chris Bell, Alexander Buono, Tamsin Rawady

Dry Summer (Susuz Yaz)

Everlasting Moments

Scratch (Rysa)

Sunday 15 February IFI 1 / 6.30pm

Sunday 15 February Cineworld 17 / 8.00pm

Sunday 15 February Light House / 8.30pm

Directors: Metin Erksan 1964 / Turkey / 75 minutes

Director: Jan Troell 2008 / Denmark / Sweden / 125 minutes

Director: Michal Rosa 2008 / Poland / 89 minutes

Principal Cast: Ulvi Dogan, Erol Tas, Hülya Koçyigit, Zeki Tüney

Principal Cast: Maria Heiskanen, Mikael Persbrandt, Jesper Christensen

Principal Cast: Jadwiga Jankowska-Cieslak, Krzysztof Stroinski, Ewa Telega, Miroslawa Marcheluk

An adaptation from Necati Cumalı’s story, Dry Summer is the masterpiece by Metin Erksan which won Turkish cinema its first main international prize (Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 1964). Dry Summer, a village story about a struggle over land and water, is one of the most stunning examples of the clash between good and evil in Turkish cinema.

Everlasting Moments reverses conventional thinking about history. It’s not the great man on horseback, but the housewife with a camera whose actions really change the world. Maria is swept away by the loutish rake Sigfrid and marries him at a young age. Sigfrid can’t keep a job, but possesses a unique gift for stumbling home roaring drunk at the worst possible moment. Eventually, his rage and frustration manifest themselves on the domestic front.

In one of the most remarkable Polish films of 2008, renowned Polish director Michael Rosa returns with Scratch, a family psycho-drama evolving around the life of a middle-aged marriage. Rosa expertly transforms their existence in a small flat into a domestic war zone. Did he betray his wife? Did his collaboration with the secret police end in his own father’s death? Most importantly, is mercy an obligation?

Confronted with a bleak future, Maria strikes up a friendship with Mr. Petersson, the proprietor of the local photography shop.

She begins taking her own photographs.

For her, it’s a near magical window to a world she knows little about, and a welcome respite from her tumultuous home life. Her new pastime poses troubling questions for her, though: is the satisfaction she gets from it worth her marriage, one of the few constants in her life? Everlasting Moments is an affectionate tribute by one generation to its predecessors, one that’s more moving because of the cultural schism between them.

Joanna is a sixty-year-old professor of a renowned Krakow university, a biologist and daughter of a famous pre-war politician.

She is petite but full of energy, and she trusts people. Jan is a mathematician, the mainstay of the family, solid and caring, a keen debater and wit. They have been living together happily as a couple for many years. Their life has had its ups and downs, but they have survived supporting and respecting each other, and being respected by others in turn. Suddenly, something casts a shadow over their relationship, something going back many years, to the time before they had met - a scratch on the shiny surface.

Re-living the success he achieved with The Revenge of the Snakes, a Fakir Baykurt adaptation shot in 1962, Metin Erksan depicts the confrontation between two brothers, Osman and Hasan. Osman surrounds the water that springs from their land with barriers to prevent the villagers from using it. Hasan argues that others should also be allowed to take the water. Confessing a murder committed by his brother, Hasan is convicted and sent to prison. After his release he learns that Osman used deception to take away his wife and marry her. Thanks to its success in portraying the sexuality of rural areas and its ingenuity in treating the erotic, Dry Summer earns a special place in Turkish film history.

Print Source: Cineteca di Bologna Producer: Ulvi Dogan Screenplay: Necati Cumali, Metan Erksan, Kemal Inci, )Ismet Soydan

Steve Gravestock, Toronto International Film Festival Programme • Jan Troell will be in attendance at this screening.

• Michal Rosa will be in attendance at this screening.

Print Source: Eclipse Pictures/Icon Film Distribution Producers: Thomas Stenderup Screenplay: Niklas Rådström, Jan Troell, Agneta Ulfsäter Troell

Print Source: m-appeal Producer: Henryk Romanowski, Dariusz Sidor Screenplay: Michal Rosa

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 63

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Dundrum Gala Coraline 3D Sunday 15 February Movies@Dundrum / 8.00pm Director: Henry Selick 2009 / USA / 100 minutes Featuring the Voice Talent of: Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Ian McShane

Based on Neil Gaiman’s international best-selling book and helmed by “The Nightmare Before Christmas” director Henry Selick is the first high definition, stop-motion animated feature to be shot in 3-D. In the film, a young girl (voiced by Dakota Fanning) walks through a secret door in her new home and discovers an alternate version of her life. On the surface, this parallel reality is eerily similar to her real life – only much better. But when this wondrously off-kilter, fantastical adventure turns dangerous and her

counterfeit other mother (voiced by Teri Hatcher) tries to keep her forever, Coraline must count on her stubborn determination, bravery, and the aid of her neighbours and a talking black cat to save her real parents and some ghost children and get back home.

Print Source: Universal Pictures International Ireland Producers: Bill Mechanic, Mary Sandell, Claire Jennings, Henry Selick Screenplay: Henry Selick

Eamon

Takva

My Life As A Dog (Mitt liv som hund)

Sunday 15 February Cineworld 9 / 8.30pm

Sun 15 Feb / Screen 2 / 8.45pm Wed 18 Feb / Screen 2 / 2.00pm

Monday 16 February Screen 1 / 2.00pm

Director: Margaret Corkery 2008 / Ireland / 80 minutes

Director: Özer Kiziltan 2006 / Turkey / 96 minutes

Director: Lasse Hallström 1985 / Sweden / 101 minutes

Principal Cast: Amy Kirwan, Darren Healy, Robert Donnelly

Principal Cast: Erkan Can, Güven Kirac, Meray Ülgen, Öznur Kula, Erman Saban, Murat Cemcir

Principal Cast: Anton Glanzelius, Melinda Kinnaman, Tomas von Brömssen.

A shining example of young Irish filmmaking talent, award-winning Margaret Corkery’s debut feature is a brilliantly dark and romantic account of one dysfunctional family’s attempts to escape their true selves and their many problems.

For over 30 years, Muharrem has led a quiet life as an employee in the same traditional part of Istanbul where he was born. A modest, introverted and lonely man of humble circumstances, he is a strict observer of the Islamic precepts: he prays a great deal and practices sexual abstinence.

His reputation for being trustworthy and duteous prompts a powerful religious group to offer him job as a rent collector for their numerous properties.

This charming, bitter-sweet evocation of childhood is something of a gem. Set in the Sweden of the 1950s, it describes the 400 blows suffered by a resourceful, twitchy and energetic 12-year-old boy who is farmed out to country relatives when his antics and demands for attention prove too much for his ailing mother. Hallström nurtures from his young star (Glanzelius) a performance of remarkable range and maturity, presenting a poignant picture of youthful tenacity struggling to come to terms with disappointments and events that may be beyond his comprehension, but which he manages to negotiate with his quirky, open-eyed optimism intact. Witty, touching and perceptive as he contrasts the rural village and its strange but generous-hearted eccentrics with the harsher realities of the city, Hallström makes it a seamless mix of tragedy and humour.

Eamon is six and sleeps with his mother Grace, much to the chagrin of his father Daniel, who is confined to the spare room. As Eamon’s boundless enthusiasm begins to get on Grace’s nerves, she unsuccessfully attempts to foist the boy on her mother before the three decide to go on holiday to a secluded family house in the idyllic countryside.

While Eamon is eager to ingratiate himself with the other children on holiday, Daniel’s sexual frustrations begin to simmer as Grace spends her days sunbathing and remaining indifferent to Daniel’s advances. The destructive love triangle takes a series of unexpected twists as each are forced into desperate measures. Boasting a stellar performance from Robert Donnelly in the title role, Eamon is proof of the sheer quality and breakout potential of new Irish film.

Colm McAuliffe, JDIFF • Margaret Corkery will be in attendance at this screening.

Print Source: Zanita Films Producer: Seamus Byrne Screenplay: Margaret Corkery

66 • Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009

All at once he finds himself in a world that he had previously succeeded in evading.

Before long he begins to encounter such things as hypocrisy and alcoholic excess; to his own consternation he discovers his own penchant for tyranny and pride and even becomes an unwitting accomplice in a con trick.

Until now, Muharrem was able to differentiate between worldly and spiritual values. But now the balance and order of his devout existence is in ruins and his fear of God’s punishment is tearing him apart.

Wally Hammon, Time Out London • Chosen by Theatre Director Garry Hynes

Berlin International Film Festival Programme • Producer Onder Cakar will be in attendance at this screening.

Print Source: The Match Factory Producer: Onder Cakar, Sevil Demirci Screenplay: Onder Cakar

Print Source: Swedish Film Institute Producer: Waldemar Bergendahl Screenplay: Lasse Hallström, Reidar Jönsson, Brasse Brännström, Per Berglund

This Is Your Life (Här har du ditt liv)

Seamstresses (Shivachki)

Franklyn

Monday 16 February Screen 2 / 2.00pm

Monday 16 February Screen 2 / 6.00pm

Monday 16 February Cineworld 17 / 6.00pm

Director: Jan Troell 1965 / Sweden / 169 minutes

Director: Lyudmil Todorov 2007 / Bulgaria / 87 minutes

Director: Gerald McMorrow 2008 / United Kingdom / 98 minutes

Principal Cast: Eddie Axberg, Gudrun Brost, Ulla Akselson, Bo Wahlström

Principal Cast: Alexandra Surchadzhieva, Elen Koleva, Violeta Markovska

Principal Cast: Eva Green, Ryan Philippe, Sam Riley, Bernard Hill

Trained as a cinematographer, legendary Swedish director Jan Troell turned to directing in 1966 and Ingmar Bergman called this, his first feature film “one of the uncompromising masterpieces of Swedish film history”

When three young women - Dora, Katia, and Elena - leave their local town for the Bulgarian capital of Sofia, they hope to find respectable jobs. After a chance encounter, Katia finds employment as a waitress in a bar, and soon becomes involved with a pimp.

With the help of her sexuality, she finds herself moving up in the world while her two friends are condemned to menial jobs.

Refreshingly ambitious for a debut British feature, Franklyn is an urban fairytale which successfully marries inventive storytelling with a keen visual sense. Set between contemporary London, and the futuristic religion-dominated Meanwhile City, the film traces the fates of four characters: Jonathan Preest (Ryan Phillippe), an atheist vigilante who has vowed revenge on Meanwhile City’s leader; Emilia (Eva Green), a privileged young artist whose difficult relationship with her mother fuels her cynicism and depression; Milo (Sam Riley), a sensitive young man whose heart has been recently broken; and Peter (Bernard Hill), a deeply religious man who has come to London in search of his missing son, a troubled Gulf War veteran.

This Is Your Life is certainly a statement of intent, reviving the outdoor naturalism through which the classic Swedish cinema of Sjöström and others made its name, but applying a typically ‘60s sensibility highlighting social divisions. The film follows Axberg’s teenage protagonist as he quits his peasant foster home and Moves through a variety of labouring jobs, eventually signing up as projectionist in a travelling cinema show, and begins to develop acute political awareness. He has always had aspirations to be a novelist, and Troell’s understated but authentic record makes clear how crucial these school of life experiences will be in shaping this alert individual. Troell’s respect for ordinary workers and his faith in letting the material speak for itself are justified by a remarkably compelling narrative through-line in this spellbinding document of superior European filmmaking.

By focussing on the relations between the three women, director Lyudmil Todorov stresses their friendship in the face of life’s changes. While providing a critical commentary on the other face of the New Europe, the film retains an underlying optimism, with charming performances from Alexandra Surchadzhieva (Dora), Elen Koleva (Elena), and Violeta Markovska (Katia). If the social drama is based on real situations and events, the film is not scared to move in the direction of lyrical comedy and melodrama, to use honesty and charm to please an audience.

Peter Hames, London Film Festival Programme

Deftly moving the narrative between the worlds of the ‘real’ and the ‘imaginary’ allows writerdirector Gerald McMorrow full reign to explore the relationship between love, fantasy and faith.

The latest in a long history of director-led films from notable producer Jeremy Thomas, Franklyn is also very much an urban film, making bold, original use of its metropolitan locations.

Sandra Hebron, London Film Festival Programme

Time Out Film Guide

Print Source: Swedish Film Institute Producer: Bengt Forslund Screenplay: Jan Troell, Bengt Forslund, based on the novel

by Eyvind Johnson

Print Source: The Domino Project Producers: Petya Braykova, Brayko, Braykov, Vlado Shishkov Screenplay: Lyudmil Todorov

Print Source: Contender Films Producer: Jeremy Thomas Screenplay: Gerald McMurrow

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 67

Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel

Snow (Snijeg)

Boy A

Monday 16 February Cineworld 9 / 6.00pm

Monday 16 February IFI 1 / 6.30pm

Monday 16 February Screen 1 / 6.45pm

Director: Gareth Carrivick 2008 / United Kingdom / 108 minutes

Director: Aida Begic 2008 / Bosnia And Herzegovina / Germany / France / Iran / 100 minutes

Director: John Crowley 2007 / United Kingdom / 100 minutes

Principal Cast: Chris O’Dowd, Anna Faris, Marc Wootton, Dean Lennox Kelly

Featuring a starring role from Irishman Chris O’Dowd, Gareth Carrivick’s debut feature is an uproarious and offbeat sci-fi comedy set in the present and the future…

Three men walk into a bar; two geeks and a cynic. The first geek, Ray, has a well-known obsession with time travel, so when he is approached by Cassie, a woman who claims to be from the future, he naturally suspects a prank. The second geek, Toby, is obsessed with films, and upon hearing Ray’s story of the woman from the future, naturally assumes that Ray is pitching him a film plot. And Pete, the cynic, naturally doesn’t believe any of it, until he stumbles through a time leak into the future of the bar.

Principal Cast: Zana Marjanovic, Jasna Ornela Bery, Sadžida Šetic, Vesna Mašic, Emir Hadžihafizbegovic

It is 1997, two short years after the end of the bitter internecine conflict that ripped apart Yugoslavia. We find ourselves in the eastern Bosnian village of Slavno, where the survivors of the conflict are struggling to reassemble their lives. The men have more or less all disappeared or been killed, their fates still a mystery. The village is populated almost entirely by women and children, either orphans or fatherless.

Aida Begic’s extraordinary and penetrating study of this post-war society resonates on many levels, but above all it is a wonderful testament to the resilience of the human spirit – witnessed mostly through the eyes of three generations of women.

This triggers the start of a series of accidental trips back and forth through time, during which serious questions are raised, such as; exactly what are the golden rules of time travel? What exactly is a paradox? And most importantly of all, can Ray get it on with Cassie, the woman from the future?

Snow is full of unforgettable moments, whether capturing the affection the women show for each other or the honesty of remembered losses. A simple shot of a woman adjusting her head scarf while walking a country lane summons up a wealth of feelings and associations. This is a highly sophisticated piece of filmmaking from a director who has found a worthy subject: what is contained in the lives of survivors.

Print Source: Lionsgate UK Producers: Neil Peplow, Justin Smith Screenplay: Jamie Mathieson

Print Source: Pyramid International Producers: Elma Tataragic, Benny Drechsel, Karsten Stoeter, François D’Artemare Screenplay: Aida Begic, Elma Tataragic

68 • Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009

Principal Cast: Peter Mullan, Andrew Garfield, Katie Lyons, Shaun Evans

The first scene of Boy A unsettles an indication of what is to come. Two men – one middle-aged, the other in his twenties – sit on opposite sides of a table. They are in the process of renaming the younger man.

They settle on “Jack.” Jack now has to use this name and forget his earlier identity.

The why, which takes us back to the past, and the what, which allows acclaimed Irish director John Crowley to explore the reinvention of a personality, will gradually be revealed in this striking and distinctly powerful film.

Boy A compellingly moves between present and past as we discover who Jack really is and what happened to him as a youngster.

We are partly in Ken Loach territory here, as the nitty-gritty feel of working-class England concretely places the characters in a real world of work and family. But this is very much Crowley’s film, and he is beautifully assisted by a trio of unaffected, completely natural performances.

Piers Handling, Toronto International Film Festival Programme

Print Source: Weinstein Company Producer: Lynn Horsford Screenplay: Mark O’Rowe, based on the novel

by Jonathan Trigell

Memory (Der Tag, an dem ich meinen toten Mann traf)

Synecdoche, New York

Just Another Love Story (Kærlighed På Film)

Monday 16 February Cineworld 9 / 8.00pm

Monday 16 February Cineworld 17 / 8.30pm

Monday 16 February Screen 2 / 8.30pm

Director: Matthias Luthardt 2008 / Germany / 82 minutes

Director: Charlie Kaufman 2008 / USA / 124 minutes

Director: Ole Bornedal 2007 / Denmark / 103 minutes

Principal Cast: Pasquale Aleardi, Harry Blank, Sandra Borgmann, Franziska Petri

Principal Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Michelle Williams, Samantha Morton

Principal Cast: Anders W. Berthelsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Charlotte Fich, Dejan Cukic

German director Matthias Luthardt’s second feature Memory is a tense, gripping thriller starring Franziska Petri as Helene, grieving for her husband Robert who has vanished after a swimming accident in England.

Unsung theatre director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is living his artistically unfulfilling life in Schenecdaty, New York when his wife Adele (Catherine Keener) leaves him to follow her flourishing painting career to Berlin. A rebound relationship with his comely receptionist Hazel (Samantha Morton) never seems to get off the ground, and he finds himself struck by a mysterious illness that is systematically shutting down his autonomic functions. Then, news of a MacArthur Grant allows Caden to happily abandon both regional theater and his personal woes to begin an epic production which he envisions will become a great American masterpiece. But in striving to achieve universality and timelessness, his work is instead at every turn brought back to the mundane details of his inescapable life. Bearing Kaufman’s signature narrative and temporal acrobatics, Caden’s project becomes an everexpanding replica of his real world, and he begins to disappear into his creation.

Jonas is a crime photographer, a family man, and a generally beleaguered resident of suburban malaise until he’s involved in a car accident that leaves a stranger, Julia, unconscious in the hospital. Curiosity compels Jonas to visit her, but when Julia’s family mistakes him for her boyfriend, Sebastian (whom they’ve never met), Jonas readily steps into the role. His pretense would be short lived, but Julia awakens with amnesia and, enlivened by the new identity he’s inherited, Jonas maintains the deception. Of course, memories return. And so do boyfriends.

Ignoring the pleas of others, Helene steadfastly refuses to believe that her husband is dead but is finally convinced by one of her male admirers to attend an opera with him as she attempts to get her life back on track. Coincidentally, she comes across a man at this concert whom she believes is her husband Robert, returning to her and their children.

Despite the fact that this individual has no prior knowledge of Helene or Robert, he is intrigued by this woman’s sudden and intense interest in him and initially decides to play along, swept up in Helene’s joy at having ostensibly found her lost husband. However, as Helene attempts to put her life back together, she is haunted by memories of her married life which results in her teetering between truth and mania, the real and the imaginary.

Colm McAuliffe, JDIFF • Director Matthias Luthardt will be in attendance at this screening. Presented in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Irland Print Source: Goethe-Institut Irland Producers: Christian Drewing, Milena Maitz Screenplay: Johanna Stuttmann, based on the novel by Andrea Paluch and Robert Habeck

With this film, Kaufman brings his unique style to the big issues of life, love, death, and art, shedding contrivances and conventional metaphors in favor of a magical realism that only he could make feel so true.

Playing with flashbacks, employing a linearly fractured narrative, and freely manipulating noir’s standard devices and archetypes, Bornedal’s dexterity with genre conventions is on full display here. Constantly aware of what’s predictable, he heads in the opposite direction. Moreover, he latches onto a completely universal impulse – the desire to reinvent ourselves. But fatalism rules in noir, and the cruel irony – tailor made for that dead body – is that living a life that isn’t yours is a dangerous game, an illusory freedom. The truth always comes knocking at your door.

Sundance Film Festival Programme

Print Source: Revolver Entertainment Producers: Anthony Bregman, Spike Jonze, Charlie Kaufman Screenplay: Charlie Kaufman

Print Source: Revolver Entertainment Producer: Michael Obel Screenplay: Ole Bornedal

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 69

Exterminating Angels (Les Anges Exterminateur)

Les Enfants du Paradis

The World is Big and Salvation Lies Around the Corner

Monday 16 February Screen 1 / 8.45pm

Tuesday 17 February Screen 1 / 2.00pm

Tuesday 17 February Screen 2 / 2.00pm

Director: Jean-Claude Brisseau 2007 / France / 100 minutes

Director: Marcel Carné 1945 / France / 163 minutes

Principal Cast: Frédéric Van Den Driessche, Maroussia Dubreuil, Lise Bellynck, Marie Allan

Principal Cast: Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault, Pierre Brasseur, Marcel Herrand

Director: Stefan Komandarev 2008 / Germany / Hungary / Slovenia / 105 minutes

Jean-Claude Brisseau’s Exterminating Angels is a fantastic account of gender politics and sexual primitivism starring Frédéric Van Den Driessche as François, a film director whose latest project is an attempt at capturing ‘sensual tension with poetry and suspense.’

Les Enfants du Paradis was inspired by the popular theatre of the 19th century, and translated into an epic cinematic romance that will probably never be equalled for both substance and style. Three of its extraordinary gallery of characters, are based on historical figures - the pantomime artist Baptiste Debureau, the romantic actor Frederick Lemaitre and the criminal Lacenaire. Each falls in love with, and is briefly loved by Garance, a beautiful actress who leaves them only when her freedom is threatened by their attempts to possess her. The performances are marvellous and superbly directed by Carné and are led by Arletty as Garance, an actress whose beauty and grace was matchless.

Brisseau explores similar territory to Catherine Breillat and David Lynch as the film is illuminated with ghostly and luminous prescences and is loaded with mystical and religious imagery, as François begins a highly self-destructive quest for an unattainable grail.

The film brilliantly straddles the line between naivety and sheer manipualtion as the viewer is seduced by the splendour of the prurient sex scenes before we are rebuked for our collusion and complicity.

Filmed amid plush furnishings, twlighttwinged incandescence with a narrative that is elegantly confessional throughout, Exterminating Angels is a delicious and delirious probing of sex and self-revelation.

Colm McAuliffe, Jameson Dublin International Film Festival

But if Arletty is unforgettable, Jean-Louis Barrault as the pantomime artist (which he was in life), Pierre Brasseur as the romantic Lemaitre and Marcel Herrand as the criminal are very nearly as good, centering the huge canvas of the film securely for its three-hour duration. Cinema and poetry are the same thing, Prévert said in an interview before the film’s first showing. Not always, alas. But it’s surely true here.

Principal Cast: Miki Manojlovic, Carlo Ljubek, Hristo Mutafchiev, Ana Papadopulu, Lyudmila Cheshmedzhieva

The eventful life of Alexander – Alex – begins with his birthday. A few years later his parents decide to emigrate and he leaves Bulgaria for good. After a distressing passage though Yugoslavia and Italy, the family finally settles in Germany.

When the political climate changes, they decide to visit their old country once more, but they are involved in a car accident and only Alex survives. His grandfather Vasil goes over to see the young man, now suffering from memory loss, and when he sees that the pills prescribed for him by the German doctors aren’t working, he opts for his own course of therapy. He takes the self-assured young man home, to a picturesque Bulgarian town, where the latter starts remembering snippets of his childhood. However, grandpa realises that he has no right to take control of his grandson’s life. The adventures in this peculiar story (based on the autobiographical novel by Iliya Troyanov) are told with ironic hyperbole and its Balkan charm is masterfully conveyed via the actors, guided by stage director Stefan Komandarev.

Derek Malcolm, The Guardian • Chosen by Poet Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill

Print Source: Axiom Films Producers: Lise Bellynck, Milena Poylo, Gilles Sacuto Screenplay: Jean-Claude Brisseau

70 • Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009

Print Source: MAE Producers: Raymond Borderie, Fred Orain Screenplay: Jacques Prévert

Print Source: The Domino Project Producers: Stefan Kitanov, Karl Baumgartner, Thanassis Karathanos, Andras Muhi, Danijel Hocevar Screenplay: Dusan Milic, Stefan Komandarev, Yuri Datchev, Ilija Trojanov, based on the novel by Iliya Troyanov

Jerichow

Four Ages of Love Two Lovers (Chetyre Vozrasta Ljubvi)

Tuesday 17 February Screen 1 / 6.00pm

Tuesday 17 February Screen 2 / 6.00pm

Tuesday 17 February Cineworld 17 / 6.00pm

Director: Christian Petzold 2008 / Germany / 93 minutes

Director: Sergey Mozrizki 2008 / Russia / 98 minutes

Director: James Gray 2008 / USA / 100 minutes

Principal Cast: Benno Fürmann, Nina Hoss, Hilmi Sözer

Principal Cast: Liya Akhedzhakova, Igor Yasulovich, Yulia Rutberg, Aleksey Serebryakov

Principal Cast: Gwyneth Paltrow, Joaquin Phoenix, Isabella Rosselini, Vinessa Shaw

Set in the former East Germany, Thomas is returning home for his mother’s funeral but stumbles across Ali, a middle-aged Turk who, under the influence, has almost driven his van into a local canal. The two men soon find that they are very useful to each other. Ali, his licence now suspended, needs a driver to ferry him around his ragtag kingdom of local snack bars. Thomas, meanwhile, is penniless, and Ali seems cash-flush. The film takes a decidedly steamy and noirish turn when Thomas discovers that Ali is married to a hot young blonde (Nina Hoss). It is not long before Petzold seamlessly brings all of his characters’ competing needs and desires together.

The directorial debut of cameraman Sergey Mokritsky, Four Ages of Love is about people of young, mature, and venerable ages as their feelings are tested by the difficulty of life’s realities. In spring, two women embark on a game of justification, while in summer a monk tries to find a home for a mentally challenged child. In fall, a teenaged couple meet by chance on a bus that becomes embroiled in a terrorist plot, leaving them to make their way to her destination on their own, and winter sees an elderly couple roaming snowy Moscow streets.

Director James Gray is best known for gritty Gotham crime thrillers like Little Odessa.

Now he stanches the bloodflow to release instead a smart, Palme d’Or–nominated romantic drama, Two Lovers—in which the son of a Brighton Beach dry cleaner, though hardly the Casanova type, suddenly finds himself in a love triangle.

There is an almost Bressonian rigour to Petzold’s direction. Clean, spare and controlled, it is a perfect counterpoint to the pulpish, Postman Always Rings Twice plot that unfolds before our eyes. Petzold never puts a foot wrong, cleverly playing with the audience’s expectations – and prejudices – before pouncing on his threesome.

Some characters and visual aspects overlap between each different part, usually with a humorous reference. But the humour – watch out for the repeating motif of oranges, as well as a very talented recurring canine performer – belies what is a serious, deep piece of filmmaking which reflects with some profundity on Russia today, as well as on life as it is anywhere on the planet.

Piers Handling, Toronto International Film Festival Programme

Pusan International Film Festival Programme

• Presented in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Irland

• Sergey Mozrizki will be in attendance at this screening.

Print Source: Goethe-Institut Irland Producers: Florian Koerner von Gustorf, Michael Weber Screenplay: Christian Petzold

Print Source: New People Film Company Producer: Natalya Mokritskaya, Ouliana Savelieva Screenplay: Alexei Golovchenko

That’s no easy position for a bewildered manic-depressive—especially considering his choices are magnetic vixen Michelle and Sandra, a guileless beauty who wants only the simple things in life. As Leonard Kraditor, the man in the middle, Joaquin Phoenix plays both fool and sly fox. He’s as untrustworthy as he is vulnerable, and in that state of ambiguity he proves a perfect successor to the deluded tough guys he portrayed in two of Gray’s earlier films, The Yards and We Own the Night.

As always, Gray captures the excitement on the streets of his beloved New York, and he keeps his ear ever-tuned to the voices and rhythms of the big city.

Denver Film Festival Programme

Print Source: Lionsgate UK Producers: Donna Gigliotti, James Gray, Anthony Katagas Screenplay: Richard Menello, James Gray

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 71

Were the World Mine

Our Wonderful Home

The Karamazovs (Karamazovi)

Tuesday 17 February Cineworld 9 / 6.00pm

Tuesday 17 February IFI 1 / 6.30pm

Tues 17 Feb / Screen 1 / 8.00pm Wed 18 Feb / Movies@Dundrum / 8pm

Director: Tom Gustafson 2008 / United States / 95 minutes

Director: Ivan Kavanagh 2008 / Ireland / 80 minutes

Principal Cast: Tanner Cohen, Wendy Robie, Judy McLane

Principal Cast: Emma Eliza Regan, Myles Horgan, Karen Griffin, Danny O’Connor, Lisa Byrne

Director: Petr Zelenka 2008 / Czech Republic / Poland / 100 minutes

This fun, dazzling and amusing musicalof-errors with a first rate ensemble cast and dishy lead is a magical modern interpretation of Shakespeare set amidst the familiar scenarios of high school angst and adolescent crushes. Timothy copes at his expensive, testosterone-fuelled boys’ school by daydreaming elaborate musical extravaganzas that feature the school’s rugby team. When the eccentric drama coach casts him as Puck from Midsummer Night’s Dream, it looks like Timothy’s sequin-filled dreams could turn into reality. Especially when he finds a potent love spell hidden within the script. He now has the means, and his fascination for rugby star Jonathon provides the motive, to turn the whole narrow-minded small homophobic town gay.

Fred projects an image of a happy, prosperous man with the perfect life. But he is living a lie. Unable for the pressures of his job and bullied by his boss Steve, he’s on the verge of being sacked for incompetence.

Meanwhile, his marriage to Fiona has lapsed into a loveless routine. Fiona is bored and desperate for some true love and affection; she has even begun an affair with Fred’s boss, Steve.

• Directors Tom Gustafson and Cory James Krueckenberg will be in attendance at this screening.

Emma (their daughter) is a troubled young woman captivated by the cult of celebrity, who equates happiness and success with wealth and fame. Although he clearly can’t afford it, her father promises Emma to pay the most part of a car on condition that Emma must earn some of the money. Emma is desperate for the car, but what lengths will she go to in order to get the money?

Our Wonderful Home chronicles the tragedy of a family who write emotional cheques that are doomed to bounce, a family who articulate their self-worth, and even their love for each other through materialism.

Galway Film Fleadh Programme • Director Ivan Kavanagh will be in attendance at this screening.

Print Source: SPEAKproductions Producers: Tom Gustafson, Cory James Krueckenberg, Peter Sterling Screenplay: Tom Gustafson, Cory James Krueckenberg

72 • Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009

Print Source: Ripple World Pictures Ltd. Producers: Jacquelin Kerrin, Dominic Wright Screenplay: Ivan Kavanagh

Principal Cast: Ivan Trojan, Igor Chmela, Martin Myšička, David Novotný, Radek Holub, Lenka Krobotová, Michaela Badinková

A Prague theatre company arrives in Krakow to present a stage adaptation of Dostoyevsky‘s The Brothers Karamazov at an alternative drama festival to be presented in a local steelworks.

As rehearsals progress, we follow developments among the actors themselves as well as their interaction with a single worker who, as a surrogate audience, is drawn inevitably into the whole process.

Dostoyevsky‘s themes of faith, immortality, and salvation cross borders as the film moves between its alternating perspectives.

Focussing on the trial scenes, the film examines the subject of patricide and the complicity of the three younger Karamazovs and the supposedly illegitimate Smerdyakov. Already hailed as the most notable Czech film of 2008, Zelenka‘s film is typically ambitious, charting new possibilities with its use of former, new wave‘ director Evald Schorm‘s now classic dramatisation. Described by Zelenka as a homage to acting, the film features Ivan Trojan, who worked with him on the stage and film versions of his last work, Wrong Side Up, as the older Karamazov.

Peter Hames, London Film Festival Programme Print Source: John Riley Producer: Čestmír Kopecký Screenplay: Petr Zelenka, based on the novel The Brothers Karamazov by F.M. Dostoyevsky and stage adaptation by Evald Schorm

Italian Gala Il Divo Tuesday 17 February Cineworld 17 / 8.00pm Director: Paolo Sorrentino 2007 / Italy / 110 minutes Principal Cast: Toni Servillo, Anna Bonaiuto, Piera Degle Esposti, Paolo Graziosi

Paolo Sorrentino’s magisterial Il Divo reaches into the tumultuous political history of post-war Italy to craft a dazzling portrait of one of the period’s most complex and ambiguous figures, Giulio Andreotti (Toni Servillo).

Arguably the most important Italian politician of the last fifty years, Andreotti entered politics in 1946 and led seven governments, turning his Christian Democratic party into a force that ran Italy in what was essentially a one-party system. To do so clearly required a man of singular abilities – but Andreotti was, and remains, an enigma to his fellow countrymen.

The film eschews the traditional biopic format in favour of a far more claustrophobic, focused look at the man. This concentration of energy and force pays high dividends, especially as Sorrentino has found a perfect vessel in Servillo, an actor who loses himself in the role and effectively “becomes” Andreotti before our eyes. From the film’s opening moments when we are confronted with Andreotti – in intense close-up, with acupuncture needles covering his face – we are unmistakably in the hands of a master.

What is fascinating about Il Divo is the manner by which it hones in on a man who is apparently more interested in obtaining power than actually wielding it. Andreotti is a tightly coiled, extremely controlled, almost emotionless field of energy who successfully navigates the backroom corridors of power but appears unconcerned and uninterested in issues of policy. Sorrentino’s conceit is not to skim the surface of Andreotti’s political accomplishments, but to stare as if through a microscope into the more private corridors of his thoughts. This he does with an intense desire to see and understand, though perhaps only the enigma remains.

Print Source: Artificial Eye Producers: Nicola Giuliano, Francesca Cima, Andrea Occhipinti, Maurizio Coppolecchia Screenplay: Paolo Sorrentino

• Director Paolo Sorrentino will be in attendance at this screening.

The National Film School at IADT offers highly innovative programmes in the following disciplines: • BA (Hons) in Animation • BA (Hons) in Film and Television Production • BA (Hons) in Model Making, Design and Digital Effects • BA (Hons) in Photography • BA (Hons) in Design for Stage and Screen* • MA in Broadcast Production for Radio and Television • MA/MSc in Digital Media

Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology Kill Avenue, Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin, Ireland

• MA in Screenwriting * Subject to approval

For more information on these programmes or on the other activities of the National Film School, please contact us.

Job No: 51410 Dublin Film Festival 160mm x 112mm Feb 09www Euros: 85.00 Approval Deadline: ASAP

t: +353 (0) 1 239 4000 f: +353 (0) 1 239 4700 Email: info@ nationalfilmschool.ie www.iadt.ie

Not Quite Hollywood

Mise Éire – 50th Anniversary Screening

Paradise (Paradiset)

Tuesday 17 February Screen 2 / 8.30pm

Tuesday 17 February Cineworld 9 / 8.30pm

Wednesday 18 February IFI 1 / 12.30pm

Director: Mark Hartley 2008 / Australia / USA / 100 minutes

Director: George Morrison 1959 / Ireland / 74 minutes

Director: Jerry Sladkowski 2007 / Sweden / 58 minutes

Featuring: Antony I. Ginnane, Brian Trenchard Smith, John Lamond, Quentin Tarantino

Free-wheelin’ sex romps! Blood-soaked terror tales! High-octane action extravaganzas!

These are the main ingredients of Mark Hartley’s documentary Not Quite Hollywood, a celebration of Australian genre cinema of the seventies and eighties.

A funny and furiously paced doc, Not Quite Hollywood is a treat for cult cineastes, a buffet of thrilling clips from obscure and lurid films sandwiched between ribald anecdotes and flashy animation derived from the films’ original poster art and international ad campaigns. Stories of sex, shock and scandal ring loud. We hear from actor Steve Railsback about the producers of Turkey Shoot going to the horse track to extend the budget, and about the media backlash against Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis, who were said to have put local actors out of work while shooting Roadgames. We learn that Dennis Hopper was pronounced dead when doctors discovered the amount of alcohol in his blood during the Mad Dog Morgan shoot. Quentin Tarantino, exploitation cinema’s poster boy, gushes about car crashes and rampaging bike gangs in his favourite Aussie flicks.

Colin Geddes, Toronto International Film Festival Programme Print Source: Optimum Releasing Producers: Craig Griffin, Michael Lynch

Featuring: Hans Stralström, Kerstin Stralström

George Morrison’s film Mise Éire (‘My Ireland’) has held an iconic status in Irish cultural history since its release in 1960. Mise Éire was actually the first Irish feature-length film that utilised an orchestral soundtrack, but its renown also rests on its director’s then relatively novel technique of recounting historical events entirely through existing archive material.

This period covered by the film witnessed the flowering of Irish Nationalism, not just from a political standpoint, but through cultural and social conduits harnessed by the Gaelic League and the Gaelic Athletics Association and given artistic impact via the founding of the Abbey Theatre by W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory.

Morrison adroitly draws all the strands together through some remarkable footage, placing especial emphasis on the abortive Easter Rising of 1916 and populating his composite with numerous archive shots of key players such as Pádraig Pearse, James Connolly, Éamon de Valera and Michael Collins.

“A marriage that survives wallpapering can survive anything” - according to a Northern Swedish proverb . Hans and Kerstin Stralström a couple who are both eighty-three years old, put their 60-year long marriage on the rocks when they set out to wallpaper their cottage together in Pojkjärvi outside Kiruna in the north of Sweden. A seemingly harmless project sets off a number of incidents that lead to a showdown the two spouses Stralström have been avoiding during their whole time together. Through their various discussions and arguments, Paradise is a charming and gentle romantic docu-comedy which showcases vicissitudes of their 65 year old relationship and indeed, gives us a glimpse of way of life which is slowly fading away.

• 2009 is also the 90th anniversary of the first meeting of Dáil Éireann. On the occasion of the two historical anniversaries, Ceann Comhairle, John O’Donoghue T.D., will deliver an introduction to this screening.

Print Source: TG4 Producer: George Morrison Screenplay: Sean MacRéamoinn

Print Source: Swedish Film Institute Producer: Antonio Russa Merenda

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 75

Withnail and I

Heart of Fire (Feuerherz)

Bart Got A Room

Wednesday 18 February Screen 1 / 2.00pm

Wednesday 18 February Screen 2 / 4.00pm

Wednesday 18 February Cineworld 9 / 6.00pm

Director: Bruce Robinson 1986 / United Kingdom / 108 minutes

Director: Luigi Falorni 2008 / Germany / Italy / Austria / France / 100 minutes

Director: Brian Hecker 2008 / USA / 99 minutes

Principal Cast: Richard E. Grant, Paul McGann, Ralph Brown, Richard Griffiths

Is Withnail and I the best British comedy ever made? Possibly. A masterpiece?

Unquestionably. Bruce Robinson’s grimy snapshot of the 1960s became one of the most iconic British movies of the 1980s, a semi-autobiographical account of two “resting” actors that was at once affectionate and resolutely unsentimental.

Certainly swinging 60s England has rarely looked as bracingly grim as it does when viewed through the eyes of the hard-drinking, acerbic Withnail (Richard E Grant) and his bemused, long-suffering sidekick (Paul McGann).

Decamping from Camden in their E-type Jag, our heroes take a “holiday by mistake” in the Lake District retreat of Withnail’s rapacious Uncle Monty (Richard Griffiths). This is a ramshackle, exuberant affair, peppered with larger-than-life inhabitants, ludicrous scenes and immensely quotable dialogue.

And as the 60s draw to an end, so Withnail and “I” must go their separate ways. They leave behind a rash of butt-ends and empty bottles - and a tender, truthful monument to the age that spawned them.

Principal Cast: Letekidan Micael, Solomie Micael, Seble Tilahun

Eritrea, 1981: there is upheaval in the country as forces fight a war of independence against Ethiopia. Ten-yearold Awet is a wilful young girl instilled with a keen sense of justice by the Italian nuns who run the Catholic orphanage where she lives. Unexpectedly, her father appears to claim her, and then passes her into the clutches of the Eritrean Liberation Front, known as the Jebha. Though she is too small to carry a gun, she is given hard labour tasks that are a struggle for her at her young age.

Yet Awet finds a role model in rebel leader Ma’aza, is drawn to the woman’s striking appearance and revolutionary rhetoric, and soon starts to sing the rebel songs used to rally the other reluctant soldiers.

Inspired by the controversial memoir by Senait Mehari, Letekidan Micael provides a terrific and moving performance in the lead role, as a girl, wise beyond her years, who has to suffer indefensible levels of betrayal at the hands of adults around her.

Principal Cast: William H. Macy, Cheryl Hines, Steven Kaplan

“What other evening in your whole life is as big? Maybe your wedding. But odds are that will end in divorce anyway,” says Danny’s sage-like friend, Craig, as the two nerdy pals lounge poolside in the Florida retirement community they call home. The night in question? Prom, of course, and high school senior/band member/student council vice president Danny Stein wants what any reasonable young man wants on prom night - to get a little lovin’ from a cute girl. He’s got the hotel, limo, and tux lined up. He’s only missing one thing - the girl..

Director and writer Brian Hecker takes us back in time to a quirky world full of plastic flamingos, golf carts, and teen anxiety.

Phenomenal comedic acting by Macy, the overly honest father who drags his son along as he cruises the singles scene, and Danny’s reoccurring exaggerated fantasies of possible dates make this the wittiest prom angst movie in ages.

Genna Terranova, Tribeca Film Festival Programme

Xan Brooks, The Guardian • Chosen by Food Writer and Critic Tom Doorley Print Source: Park Circus Producer: Paul Heller Screenplay: Bruce Robinson

76 • Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009

Print Source: Metrodome Distribution Producers: Andreas Bareiß, Bernd Burgemeister, Sven Burgemeister, Gloria Burkert Screenplay: Luigi Falorni, Gabriele Kister, based on the autobiography by Senait Mehari

Print Source: Bleiberg Entertainment, Inc. Producers: Celine Rattray, Tony Shawkat, Reagan Silber, Jai Stefan, Daniela Lundberg Taplin Screenplay: Brian Hecker

Religulous

Goodnight Irene

The Yellow Bittern: The Life and Times of Liam Clancy

Wednesday 18 February Cineworld 17 / 6.00pm

Wednesday 18 February Screen 2 / 6.00pm

Wednesday 18 February IFI 1 / 6.30pm

Director: Larry Charles 2008 / USA / 101 minutes

Director: Paolo Marinou-Blanco 2007 / Portugal / 98 minutes

Director: Alan Gilsenan 2009 / Ireland / 100 minutes

Featuring: Bill Maher, Katie Maher, Julie Maher, Senator Mark Pryor

Principal Cast: Robert Pugh, Nuno Lopes, Rita Loureiro

Featuring: Liam Clancy, Tommy Makem,

This documentary follows comedian/ talkshow host Bill Maher as he travels around the globe intervewing people about God and religion.

What brings people together in friendship and keeps them there? Alex, a misanthropic aging English actor living in Portugal, finds himself unwillingly pulled into a friendship with Irene, the beautiful young painter next door who disrupts his resentment and bitterness with her passion and her ability to rival his sarcasm. Irene inexplicably vanishes, and Alex finds himself sharing the unfolding mystery with Bruno, a lonely young man and disaffected soul who is also attached to Irene. Obsessed with finding her, the two spend day after day tearing apart Irene’s past for clues to her disappearance, without realizing that the alliance that is growing between them extends beyond the search for Irene. This touching film by director Paolo MarinouBlanco is a charming and haunting tale of friendships found and lost, and the way in which people we don’t expect can forever change our lives.

The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem are a powerful iconic presence on the Irish cultural map. They have garnered worldwide success and huge popular acclaim, but opinions are still are divided about them. To many, they are the true embodiment of the Irish popular folksong tradition, while to others, they are represent the worst excesses of stageIrishness. Yet despite this, their songs remain our songs, the songs of a people, the inner soundtrack of a nation. But for all their fame, their story remains largely untold - or at least misrepresented. Many myths and legends have grown up around The Clancy Brothers, but the legend of Liam Clancy, the youngest of them of them all, is perhaps the most potent.

In a string of frank, often hilarious but always well-considered conversations with various Christians, Maher incisively asks them what sceptics always ponder about religion in general and Christianity in particular.

He devotes the first hour to the Christian faith, weighted toward evangelism, with amusing personal recollections of growing up Catholic with a Jewish mom. Not missing a beat, he even interviews his mom, Julie (who died after filming), and sister, Kathy, in the New Jersey church they attended, uncovering exactly why his parents left the church – their use of birth control.

Sceptics unite: You have nothing to lose but your inhibitions. That, in sum, is the underlying message of this brilliant, incendiary piece of filmmaking, in which Maher inquires of the religious faithful and finds them severely wanting

Mill Valley Film Festival

Robert Koehler, Variety

Print Source: Momentum Pictures Producers: Bill Maher, Jonas Smith, Palmer West

The Yellow Bittern charts the remarkable rise to fame of the Clancy Brothers Makem from their small-town beginnings in County Tipperary to the folk hey-day of Greenwich Village in the Sixties where they out-sold the Beatles and influenced a host of artists from the young Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger. But the film also delves deep into the personal psyche of Liam Clancy as well as his dark and troubled personal life where excesses of rock-and-roll found their way in to the world of folk.

• Alan Gilsenan will be in attendance at this screening.

Print Source: Filmes Do Tejo Producers: Maria João Mayer, François D’Artemare Screenplay: Paolo Marinou-Blanco

Print Source: Crossing the Line Films Producer: Anna Rodgers

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 77

The Candidate (Kandidaten)

Tokyo!

Is There Anybody There?

Wednesday 18 February Screen 1 / 6.40pm

Wednesday 18 February Screen 2 / 8.00pm

Wednesday 18 February Cineworld 17 / 8.00pm

Director: Kasper Barfoed 2008 / Denmark / 94 minutes

Directors: Michel Gondry, Leos Carax, Bong Joon-Ho 2008 / France / Japan / 107 minutes

Director: John Crowley 2008 / England / 92 minutes

Principal Cast: Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Tuva Novotny, Kim Bodnia

Beautifully shot by cinematographer Manuel Alberto Claro, The Candidate is a stylish and breathtaking thriller. Jonas Bechmann (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), a defence attorney, is very much a man dedicated to the system, until the day he finds himself the victim of a dramatic and sinister blackmail plot. Taking matters into his own hands, Jonas throws himself into the hunt for those who threaten to expose him. But nothing is what it appears, and the blackmail leads him back to his father’s death under mysterious circumstances a year and a half earlier, and into the orbit of hard-nosed con Claes Kiehlert (Kim Bodnia).

Jonas finds himself in a dangerous and confusing world, at the mercy of forces seemingly beyond his control. Director Kasper Barfoed skillfully maintains a fine balance of time and place, intercutting past and present to build a real sense of chaos and anxiety. Expert plotting and pacing, distinctive sound design and strong performances throughout mark this film out as one of the most outstanding European noirs in recent years.

Principal Cast: Ryo Kase, Denis Lavant, Teruyuki Kagawa

Omnibus films are uneven almost by definition, but the idea of letting one Korean and two French directors loose in Tokyo was a pretty good one. Michel Gondry, starts out in sitcom territory: a randy young ‘artist’ and his girlfriend arrive in Tokyo on a very rainy night and soon face the challenge of finding places to live and park the car. But the episode delicately mutates into something darker: a surreal allegory of the collapse of the girl’s confidence and sense of self-worth.

Bong Joon-Ho focuses on two quintessentially Japanese phenomena – earthquakes and hikikomori, those individuals who lead ‘shut-in’ lives, shunning human contact – to construct a wonderfully original love story. A young man who never leaves his anally retentive home makes his first eye-contact in eleven years with the strange young woman who delivers his pizza one Saturday. Finding her again entails summoning up the courage to venture out on to the mysteriously empty streets of the city… Not exactly a primer in Japanese studies, but tremors of desire will never seem the same again.

Sarah Lutton, London Film Festival Programme

Print Source: Danish Film Institute Producers: Jonas Allen, Peter Bose Screenplay: Stefan Jaworski

78 • Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009

Principal Cast: Michael Caine, Bill Milner, Anne-Marie Duff, David Morrissey

Edward lives in a rambling hospice for the aged, of which his parents are the managers and owners. He is fascinated by death, but more interestingly, by what happens after death.

Surrounded by the elderly, he is intrigued by ghosts and the paranormal. His distracted and overworked parents tolerate his interests, but Edward is obsessive in his morbid fascinations.

With the arrival of the bitter, burned-out Clarence (the indomitable Michael Caine), who unwillingly finds himself an inmate of the hospice, Edward’s interests take on an entirely different dimension. An ex-magician who has stopped practising his trade, Clarence no longer finds anything positive anywhere or in anyone.

Irascible, irritable and angry, Clarence is at first barely able to tolerate the young whippersnapper – but it is not long before they are drawn together, trying to make sense of the world.

Caine gives a commanding and daring performance as the jaded Clarence, and Milner is a perfect foil as the youngster..

Full of wit, wisdom and wistfulness, this film confronts death and the hereafter with humour and honesty.

• Director John Crowley will be in attendance at this screening.

Print Source: Optimum Releasing Producers: Anne Pernod-Sawada, Masa Sawada, Michiko Yoshitake Screenplay: Michel Gondry, Leos Carax, Bong Joon-Ho

Print Source: Optimum Releasing Producers: Peter Saraf, Marc Turtletaub, David Heyman Screenplay: Peter Harness

Shifty

Kill Daddy Goodnight (Das Vaterspiel)

Brief Encounter

Wednesday 18 February Cineworld 9 / 8.00pm

Wednesday 18 February Screen 1 / 8.40pm

Thursday 19 February Screen 1 / 2.00pm

Director: Eran Creevy 2008 / United Kingdom / 86 minutes

Director: Michael Glawogger 2008 / Ireland / Austria / 110 minutes

Director: David Lean 1945 / United Kingdom / 86 minutes

Principal Cast: Riz Ahmed, Daniel Mays, Jason Flemyng

Principal Cast: Helmut Köpping, Christian Tramitz, Sabine Timoteo, Ulrich Tukur

Principal Cast: Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway, Cyril Raymond

After a lengthy absence, Chris (Daniel Mays) returns to where he grew up on the outskirts of London, ostensibly to attend a party, but his main motive is to catch up with Shifty (Riz Ahmed), the best friend he left behind. In Chris’ absence, Shifty has started dealing drugs, supplied by the duplicitous Glen (Jason Flemyng), and is serving a variety of customers from the community, while trying to keep his activities a secret from his self-righteous brother Rez (Nitin Ganatra), who he lives with. Chris shadows his old mate over the course of an eventful 24 hours, where they confront the ghosts from the past that drove Chris away, and the desperate and dangerous present Shifty finds himself in.

Rupert “Ratz” Kramer, 35 years old, is fighting his own quiet fight. He’s the son of a corrupt politician who has betrayed everyone. So, by way of revenge, he is creating a game on his personal computer in which players annihilate their fathers.

Brief Encounter is such a landmark that no one could ever successfully remake it. The original isn’t just the stiff-upper-lip weepie to rule them all, but the most indelible vision of 1940s England the movies ever gave us. The bustling tea-rooms, the packed matinees: this is a vanished world, perfectly preserved.

Delivered after a shooting schedule of just 18 days, Shifty is a terrific example of a film that manages to do a great deal with very little, an energetic and engaged slice of social realism that avoids the clichés and dourness that might be associated with the genre.

When Ratz receives an unexpected call from a long-lost lover he travels to New York to undertake a redecoration job in a Long Island home. Meanwhile, his computer game becomes a runaway commercial success and Ratz finds himself pitched into a confrontation with the past as his family begins to dissolve in Vienna.

This gripping Irish-Austrian co-production becomes the story of three families and three generations, a journey into the dark heart of the 20th century - and of one man’s conscience. The condemnation of the last century bundled in these three families showing clearly that one could never escape from its own past.

It’s left to Rachmaninov to supply an ocean of emotional turmoil - everything else in the film is as subtle as the seconds ticking by.

Turn the sound down, pretend that’s only grit in your eye, and Brief Encounter is anything but gushing or sentimentalised: like the Japanese masters, David Lean paints heartbreak with perfect decorum.

• Chosen by Actress and Chanteuse Camille O’Sullivan

• Director Eran Creevy will be in attendance at this screening.

Print Source: Metrodome Distribution Producers: Rory Aiken, Ben Pugh Screenplay: Eran Creevy

In it, there’s something excruciatingly civilised about the idea of forbidden love being slotted into a train timetable, observing some semblance of the proper form, even as Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard long for the impossible fantasy they’ve created.

Print Source: Celluloid Dreams Producers: Erich Lackner, Christine Ruppert Screenplay: Michael Glawogger based on the novel

by Josef Haslinger

Print Source: Park Circus Producer: Noel Coward Screenplay: David Lean, Anthony Havelock-Allen, Ronald Neame, based on the play Still Life, by Noel Coward

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 79

My Father and Son (Babam Ve Oglum)

The American Friend

Cold Lunch

Thursday 19 February Screen 2 / 2.00pm

Thursday 19 February Screen 1 / 4.00pm

Thursday 19 February Screen 2 / 4.10pm

Director: Çagan Irmak 2005 / Turkey / 108 minutes

Director: Wim Wenders 1977 / West Germany / France / 125 minute

Directors: Eva Sørhaug 2008 / Norway / 90 minutes

Principal Cast: Fikret Kuskan, Çetin Tekindor, Humeyra, Serif Sezer, Özge Özberk, Binnur Kaya, Ege Tanman, Yetkin Dikinciler

Principal Cast: Dennis Hopper, Bruno Ganz, Gerard Blain, Lisa Kreuzer

Principal Cast: Ane Dahl Torp, Aksel Hennie, Pia Tjelta, Bjørn Floberg, Anneke von der Lippe

Young Deniz, who lost his mother during the 1980 military coup, journeys to an Aegean farm with his father Sadik to meet his grandfather, Huseyin Efendi, for the first time. Huseyin Efendi disowned his son years ago, disapproving of his political activities, but Sadik has returned to entrust his own son to the grandfather’s care.

Deniz suddenly finds himself in the middle of a loud, eccentric family where everyone speaks at once. In addition to the feuding men, Deniz meets the farm’s handmaids: an angry aunt, a fabulous tractor-driving grandma who communicates using a walkietalkie, and a bride decked in bracelets from wrist to neck. While Sadik is in town trying to reconcile with a country he fought for, with his sweetheart, and with himself, Deniz explores the farm and begins to melt the ice between his father and his grandfather.

The sensitive story of a dying man who becomes an unwilling hitman, while also getting involved with one Tom Ripley.

Dennis Hopper and Bruno Ganz star in Wim Wenders’ 1977 classic film noir. The American Friend tells of the dying Jonathan Zimmermann (Ganz) who is persuaded to take a job as a hitman lined up by the mysterious American Ripley (Hopper) in return for some money to leave to his widow.

Eva Sørhaug’s memorable debut feature follows a disparate group of characters living on the fringes of Oslo society.

Cold Lunch takes an unflinching yet compassionate look at what happens when a social safety net collapses for reasons other than poverty or neglect.

Boston Turkish Film Festival Programme

Ripley here is an amusing, almost benevolent figure, but the audience never forgets his insidious, malign influence - and so another layer is added to his interaction with the naïve Zimmermann. It’s this relationship that makes this film so special, as the supremely talented Ganz and Hopper work each other up to new and often crazy heights.

Powerful hard-edged violence is thrown into effective relief by Wenders’ artful meanderings while Dennis Hopper and Bruno Ganz are electrifying.

Sam Jordison, Channel 4 Film • Chosen by Dennis Hickie, former Ireland international rugby player.

Print Source: Avsar Film Producer: Sükrü Avsar Screenplay: Çagan Irmak

80 • Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009

Print Source: Axiom Films Producer: Joachim von Mengershausen Screenplay: Wim Wenders, based on the novel

by Patricia Highsmith

Christer is a torpid hustler who has been simultaneously fired from his job and kicked out of his apartment. Heidi, a scattered young mother, is obsessed with maintaining her masochistic relationship with the repugnant Odd. Leni, the agoraphobic daughter of a health-obsessed intellectual, has spent decades cooped up in her parents’ apartment, and is one day unexpectedly released into the world. But it is ultimately Heidi’s abject failure as a parent that is most troubling – the storyline’s shocking conclusion is not for the faint of heart.

Directing with a maturity rarely seen in a first feature, Sørhaug deftly balances a critical view of her own characters with considerable empathy. We never lose sight of these troubled souls’ basic humanity.

Print Source: Norwegian Film Institute Producers: Håkon Øverås, Aagot Skjeldal Screenplay: Per Schreiner

Awaydays

Broken Lines

The Desert Within (Desierto Adentro)

Thursday 19 February Screen 2 /6.00pm

Thursday 19 February Cineworld 9 /6.00pm

Thursday 19 February Screen 1 / 6.30pm

Director: Pat Holden 2008 / United Kingdom / 104 minutes

Director: Sallie Aprahamian 2008 / United Kingdom / 112 minutes

Director: Rodrigo Plá 2008 / Mexico / 112 minutes

Principal Cast: Nicky Bell, Liam Boyle, Stephen Graham

Principal Cast: Doraly Rosa, Dan Fredenburgh, Paul Bettany, Olivia Williams

Principal Cast: Mario Zaragoza, Diego Cataño, Memo Dorantes, Eileen Yañez, Luis Fernando Peña, Jimena Ayala

On the Wirral in the grim early years of Margaret Thatcher’s premiership, the opportunities for thrill-seeking young men looking to escape 9 to 5 drudgery are what they’ve always been: sex, drugs, rock n’ roll, fashion, football and fighting. Paul Carty (Nicky Bell) goes to the game, chases skirt, pores over records in the racks at Probe, and gets to see Echo and the Bunnymen, but his fraught family life and dull job leave him feeling bereft and he is soon drawn to The Pack, a faction of football hooligans who own the terraces.

Jake (Dan Fredenburgh) is a young Jewish man, an affluent, successful property developer, living with his fiancée Zoe (Olivia Williams) in suburbia. The death of his father provokes him to question the relationships he has with others in his life, and draws him back to the inner-city neighbourhood of his youth, where his father owned a tailoring business. He meets B (Doraly Rosa), who is waitressing at a café he frequents, and is drawn to her. B is also in a relationship, with Chester (Paul Bettany), an exboxer crippled after suffering a stroke in a fight, who is becoming increasingly dependant on her.

Elías has committed a sin against God and he fears he will be punished. He is convinced that God’s wrath will manifest itself in the premature death of his eight children. In order to earn God’s forgiveness, he chooses to live in seclusion and dedicates his life to the construction of a church.

Endearing himself to The Pack’s General, John Godden (Stephen Graham), Carty throws himself into a world of boozy train journeys, Stanley knives and savage violence. Skillfully directed by Pat Holden, with a script adapted by Kevin Sampson from his own cult novel, Awaydays is an exuberant thrill, an outstanding rites of passage movie with intelligence and depth that is superior to any recent film dealing with hooliganism.

As Jake and B have to deal with the guilt and anxiety their mutual attraction causes, they recognise that it could have the potential for them both to find true happiness. Sallie Aprahamian’s debut feature is a mature, sophisticated and assured work that deftly avoids cliché, dealing with human emotions in a realistic and honest way. Filming on the streets of Finsbury Park, Rosa and Fredenburgh contribute an effecting script while also delivering committed, impressive performances, and they are ably supported by the credible ensemble cast.

Michael Hayden, London Film Festival Programme

The story is told through the eyes of Elías’s youngest and most vulnerable son Aureliano, who portrays the family saga in religious paintings. Yet it is Elías’s mistakes which change the course of events, not God’s vengeance.

The director was initially prompted to make the film after discovering the diaries of the philosopher Sören Kierkegaard, who describes his fear of being condemned to a premature death by his father. Events unfolding during the 20th century helped the filmmaker to transfer the story from a Protestant environment to a Catholic and Mexican setting, and, in a historical context, to portray a film image of irrational religious insanity. The film closed International Critics’ Week at Cannes in 2008.

Michael Hayden, London Film Festival Programme

Print Source: Optimum Releasing Producer: David A. Hughes Screenplay: Kevin Sampson

Print Source: Axiom Films Producer: Douglas Cummins Screenplay: Doraly Rosa, Dan Fredenburgh

Print Source: Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografia (IMCINE) Producers: Germán Méndez, Rodrigo Plá Screenplay: Laura Santullo, Rodrigo Plá

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 81

Anvil! The Story of Anvil

Liam Clancy & Friends Live at the Bitter End

Blue Eyelids (Párpados Azules)

Thursday 19 February Cineworld 17 / 8.00pm

Thursday 19 February Movies@Dundrum / 8.00pm

Thursday 19 February Screen 2 / 8.10pm

Director: Sacha Gervasi 2008 / USA / 80 minutes

Director: Alan Gilsenan 2009 / Ireland / Duration

Director: Ernesto Contreras 2007 / Mexico / 98 minutes

Featuring: Steve Kudlow, Robb Reiner, Glenn Gyorffy

Featuring: Liam Clancy, Shane MacGowan, Odetta, Fionn Regan

Principal Cast: Cecilia Suárez, Enrique Arreola, Andrés Montiel, Magali Boysselle

As Anvil! The Story of Anvil reveals, very few people have been willing to take a punt on these ‘demigods of heavy metal’ throughout their career. Formed in Toronto by two school friends, Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow and Robb Reiner, the band gained some fans and respect by their second album, 1982’s Metal on Metal, but from there they drifted into obscurity.

Following the recent death of Tommy Makem, Liam Clancy is the last remaining member of the genuinely legendary Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. In their hey-day, they were as radical and groundbreaking as the Pogues were in theirs.

They re-appropriated forgotten Irish folk songs and injected them with an energy and style learnt in the underground black clubs of New York and Chicago and in the folk clubs of the Sixties’ Greenwich Village.

At their height, they were out-selling the Beatles and American musical history will undoubtedly name-check them alongside popular music icons such as Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie.

In a remarkable feature-film debut, Ernesto Contreras gently explores solitude and the quest for love in Mexico. Marina works at a uniform factory, and one day wins an all-expense-paid trip for two from her employer–a trip to a beach paradise.

Unfortunately, because of her solitude, she doesn’t have anyone to invite as her guest.

When Victor unexpectedly presents himself to her as an old friend from high school, she doesn’t remember. But it seems that Marina does not remember anything as she quietly wanders through her daily life – as if life is passing her by without any meaning or memory.

Now in their 50s, the two men are touchingly still dedicated to following their rock dreams, even as each glimmer of encouragement they get is being snuffed out. Filmmaker Sacha Gervasi is allowed incredible access to the band, portraying their eccentricities, anxieties, confrontations and meltdowns with frankness, but never without affection, and you can’t help but admire the crazed conviction they have, no matter how many setbacks they face. Get ready to raise a devil horns salute to Anvil; long may it rock!

• Anvil will be in attendance at this screening.

The Concert features Clancy and many of the cast of the life story gather for a last concert in Greenwich Village’s The Bitter End club. Filmed in New York in July, 2008, this intimate and atmospheric concert features remarkable performances from Clancy, Odetta, Tom Paxton, Shane MacGowan amongst others.

Set in a modern Mexican megalopolis, a world filled with pale shades of blue, the film showcases Contreras’s steady direction and Cecilia Suárez and Enrique Arreola’s wonderful performances, which lend a quiet inertia to the film as they seek love and connectedness. And the sweetness lies in Marina and Victor’s continual efforts to keep trying and seeking, which is a lesson many of us could take as we journey through our lives.

Sundance Film Festival Programme • Director Ernesto Contreras will be in attendance at this screening.

Print Source: The Works Producers: Rebecca Yeldham

82 • Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009

Print Source: Crossing the Line Films Producer: Anna Rodgers

Print Source: Axiom Films Producers: Luis Albores, Érika Ávila, Sandra Paredes Screenplay: Carlos Contreras

Two for the Road

The Mark of an Angel (L’Empreinte de l’Ange)

Chris & Don: A Love Story

Thursday 19 February Light House / 8.15pm

Thursday 19 February Screen 1 / 8.40pm

Monday 16 February Cineworld 9 / 8.50pm

Director: Stanley Donen 1967 / USA / 111 minutes

Director: Safy Nebbou 2007 / France / 95 minutes

Directors: Tina Mascara, Guido Santi 2007 / USA / 90 minutes

Principal Cast: Audrey Hepburn, Albert Finney, Eleanor Bron, William Daniels

Principal Cast: Catherine Frot, Sandrine Bonnaire, Wladimir Yordanoff, Antoine Chappey

Featuring: Christopher Isherwood, Don Bachardy, Leslie Caron

It was in 1967 that filmmaker Stanley Donen decided to address the unrelenting battlefield of the sexes in Two for the Road, a fun yet piercing look into the twelve year relationship of one particular couple. This would not be a typical Hollywood love story. With a decidedly European cinematic sensibility, Donen delivered a romantic comedy, disguised as a road movie, replete with humor, style, honesty and flair.

Elsa is locked in a custody battle with her ex-husband. Whether she wins care of her son depends on her stability, but immediately one senses that this may be a challenge. As she picks the boy up from a birthday party, she notices a little girl.

Something clicks. Elsa begins to follow the girl, strangely curious about every detail of her life. Of course this girl has a family of her own. Once her mother Claire discovers that her daughter is being stalked for unknown reasons, her own maternal instincts rise to their full strength.

The three-and-a-half-decade relationship between the British writer Christopher Isherwood and the American portrait artist Don Bachardy is one of the ultimate true stories of a proto-gaymarriage succeeding in a forbidding climate.

Mark (Finney) is an architect, Joanna (Hepburn) his wife. Indeed, Hepburn’s Joanna is her finest screen moment. Her style as the slender gamine has never been more apropos. Joanna is always equal to Mark’s bluster and she is the one who continually mollifies him with humor, understanding or love (and often sex).

The film’s true beauty lies in its voyeuristic, often difficult glimpse into the personal successes and failings of two people who you know can do better. Relationships can be hard and when a movie can offer a brief insight or bring an entertaining honesty to the endeavors of love and its machinations, the magic of the cinema is indeed worthwhile.

Director Safy Nebbou coaxes the initial spark of the film’s premise into a slow burn of suspense. So when Elsa enters Claire’s home under false pretenses, the threat is palpable.

And when she tracks Claire and her daughter to a local skating rink, the scene carries sudden undercurrents of real danger.

However, L’Empreinte de l’Ange turns out to have far more on its mind than simply jolting the audience, and avoids thriller clichés on its way to a surprising and extremely satisfying conclusion.

Guido Santi and Tina Mascara’s tender, extremely touching documentary, Chris & Don: A Love Story, examines the history of this complicated and passionate relationship, which ended with Mr. Isherwood’s death in 1986.

Defying social conventions of the 1950s and ‘60s, the two men navigated Hollywood society as an openly gay couple and navigation was made all the more treacherous by the 30-year age difference between the two, who met on a Santa Monica beach and became lovers when Mr. Bachardy was 18, but looked several years younger.

The elegantly structured documentary weaves extensive footage of Mr. Bachardy rummaging through their house and reminiscing with readings from Isherwood’s diaries by Michael York, old interviews with Isherwood along with home movies of their travels and glamorous social life.

• Frederic Raphael will be in attendance at this screening.

Cameron Bailey, Toronto International Film Festival Programme

Stephen Holden, New York Times

Print Source: Cooper Films Producer: Stanley Donen Screenplay: Frederic Raphael

Print Source: Metrodome Distribution Producer: Michel Saint-Jean Screenplay: Safy Nebbou, Cyril Gomez-Mathieu

Print Source: Asphalt Films Producers: Julia Alexander, Tina Mascara, Guido Santi

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 83

Stone Pastures

Cherrybomb

Zift

Friday 20 February Cineworld 9 / 4.00pm

Friday 20 February Cineworld 17 / 6.00pm

Friday 20 February Cineworld 9 / 6.00pm

Director: Donagh Coleman 2008 / United Kingdom / Ireland / Finland / Estonia / 76 minutes

Directors: Glenn Leyburn, Lisa Barros d’Sa 2008 / Ireland / United Kingdom / 76 minutes

Director: Javor Gardev 2008 / Bulgaria / 92 minutes

Principal Cast: Rupert Grint, Robert Sheehan, Kimberley Nixon, James Nesbitt

Stone Pastures tells the story of a nomadic family living on the Himalayan plateau of Ladakh. In this high altitude cold desert, the nomads’ way of life is fast disappearing as the modern world encroaches on the century old tradition of rearing Pashmina goats. This struggle contains a paradox: Ladakh’s gritty, rocky conditions gave rise to the finest of materials, pashmina wool.

Produced by the nomads’ goats as a warm undercoat, this is the raw material for luxurious Kashmiri shawls, and the only source of income for the poor nomads. This film follows the life of these extraordinary people over the course of nine months.

• Donagh Coleman will be in attendance at this screening.

Cherrybomb is the joint debut of co-directors Glen Leyburn and Lisa Barros D’Sa from a screenplay by Daragh Carville. Set in Belfast, this is a fast-paced drama centering on two teenage friends whose furious rivalry for a gorgeous yet cunning girl has shocking consequences.

Best friends Luke, and Malachy are finally ready to enjoy their summer after finishing their final school exams. Yet, when the stunning Michelle moves to town unexpectedly, these two best friends soon become worst enemies. With a resistance to boredom, Michelle seductively encourages a dirty competition between the two for her heart. Meanwhile, Michelle’s father’s penchant for local girls threatens to catch up with him as what was supposed to have been a relaxing vacation transforms into a wild ride of drinking, drugs, sex and a deadly end to the competition.

Featuring Rupert Grint (Harry Potter) and James Nesbitt (Cold Feet), Cherrybomb boasts an impressive ensemble of young Irish and is a thrilling and highly impressive debut feature from two filmmakers to watch for the future.

Colm McAuliffe, JDIFF • Cast will be in attendance at this screening.

Print Source: Wildfire Films Producers: Martha O’Neill, Jouko Aaltonen, Beverley Cook

84 • Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009

Print Source: Generator Entertainment Producer: Mark Huffam Screenplay: Darragh Carville

Principal Cast: Zachary Baharov, Tanya Ilieva, Vladimir Penev, Mihail Mutafov, Djoko Rossich

Shortly before the Bulgarian Communist coup of 1944, the Moth was thrown into jail under a false conviction for murder. Finally freed from the confines of his unjust prison sentence, he finds himself in a strange and intimidating new place: totalitarian Sofia of the sixties. He stumbles into a series of bizarre encounters with a parade of eccentric characters, as the marginalized – agents, medics, barflies, outcasts and gravediggers – all lure him to the flame of disaster.

Zift boasts stunningly disorienting cinematography by Emil Christov, who teams up with director Javor Gardev to forge an atmospheric parable about freedom, justice and social change. The film is a genre hybrid unlike any other, drawing in equal measure upon city films, the neo-noir and Soviet pseudo-socialist art. The latter infuses a relentless, irreverent energy to Zift, while the asphalt jungle lends a sense of desperation and a pervasive social malaise to the Moth’s peripatetic plight. This is a truly striking feature debut and a razor-sharp depiction of the forces that catch on to someone’s fate and hold on tight.

Dimitri Eipides, Toronto International Film Festival Programme Print Source: Miramar Film Ltd. Producers: Ilian Djevelekov, Matey Konstantinov, Georgi Dimitrov Screenplay: Vladislav Todorov

Encounters at the End of the World

A Song for Dad

Dorothy Mills

Friday 20 February Light House / 6.00pm

Friday 20 February IFI 1 / 6.30pm

Friday 20 February Cineworld 9 / 8.00pm

Director: Werner Herzog 2008 / USA / 99 minutes

Director: Niall McKay 2008 / Ireland / 71 minutes

Director: Agnès Merlet 2008 / Ireland / France / 102 minutes Principal Cast: Gary Lewis, David Wilmot, Jenn Murray, Carice Van Houten, Eamonn Owens

There is a hidden society at the end of the world. One thousand men and women live together in unbelievably close quarters in Antarctica, risking their lives and sanity in search of cutting-edge science. Now, for the first time, an outsider has been admitted.

In his first documentary since Grizzly Man, Werner Herzog, accompanied only by his cameraman, travelled to Antarctica, with rare access to the raw beauty and raw humanity of the ultimate ‘Down Under’.

The result is Encounters at the End of the World, Herzog’s latest meditation on nature, which beautifully explores this land of fire, ice and corrosive solitude. The nature of Antarctica ensures that it provides its own form of natural selection where professional dreamers are forced to either acclimatise themselves or admit defeat and return home.

Throughout the course of Herzog’s own narration, he maintains that he made the documentary to satisfy his own questions about nature, and many discussions are raised concerning technology, the natural world and humanity.

Beautifully shot in Ireland, France, Switzerland and the USA and set to Irish Jazz music, this intimate documentary about the relationship between film director Niall McKay and his jazz musician father Jim reveals an absorbing and very moving story of two journeys, the first as Jim returns to Ireland from Switzerland following the death of his second wife Anna. The other emotional journey is more gruelling, as father and son recall the events of Niall’s childhood thirty years ago, his parents’ separation and his mother’s depression, alcoholism and tragic death.

A Song for Dad fuses a Jazz documentary and a personal artistic narrative in a road movie that examines an unusual father son story. It explores the theme of an Irish father and son’s journey, the migrant’s journey,the journey through jazz, and the heroes’ journey and offers a unique and comelling examination of the relationship between the the improvisational nature of Jazz music and life.

• Niall McKay will be in attendance at this screening.

Cork Film Festival Programme Print Source: Revolver Entertainment Producer: Henry Kaiser

Print Source: Media Factory Producers: Niall McKay, Seamus Duggan, Marissa Aroy

Filmed on location in Dublin and Donegal, this taut, psychological thriller centres on Jane Morton, a psychiatrist in mourning after the accidental death of her son. She is soon assigned the case of Dorothy Mills, a 15-year-old girl from a contemporary, yet rural island off the coast of Ireland, who has been accused of attempting to assault a baby in her charge. Arriving at the village, Jane discovers a small, frightened community, troubled by mysterious events and haunted by a terrible shared secret and hostile to outsiders.

Deeply religious, and believed by the villagers to possess supernatural powers, the terrified Dorothy swears she never touched the child. Moved by the girl’s fragile, vulnerable state, Jane makes a diagnosis of multiple personality disorder, until the day that Dorothy speaks to her with the voice of her dead son. Jane is forced to admit that the girl indeed possesses powers that exist beyond the realm of psychiatry. However, as she assists Dorothy in her predicament, Jane becomes increasingly confronted with her own past tragedies – and starts to unravel the terrible secret hidden by some of the local villagers.

Print Source: Optimum Releasing Producers: James Flynn, Eric Jehelmann, Marc Missonnier Screenplay: Agnès Merlet, Juliette Sales

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 85

Genova

Friday 20 February Cineworld 17 / 8.00pm Director: Michael Winterbottom 2007 / United Kingdom / 94 minutes Principal Cast: Colin Firth, Catherine Keener, Hope Davies, Willa Holland

Michael Winterbottom is the most protean of contemporary directors, turning his hand to political thriller, comedy, docudrama and the far reaches of the erotic. The stories vary, but what remains consistent is this English filmmaker’s search for psychological truth. Genova pushes this pursuit forward, and into new territory.

Joe (Colin Firth) is an Englishman raising his family in the United States.

One day as his wife (Hope Davis) is driving their daughters home, she becomes momentarily distracted.

Disaster strikes. Left in a fog of grief, Joe decides to accept a position teaching in Italy. He hopes the change of setting will help to pull both him and his daughters from the limbo of their bereavement.

Like many teenagers, Kelly (Willa Holland) is sullen at home. In Europe, however, she is suddenly awakened to new possibilities, and strikes up a secret romance with an Italian boy.

Her younger sister Mary (Perla HaneyJardine) feels the death of their mother most acutely; in fact, the tragedy may have followed them to Italy. As he tries to keep a handle on his daughters, Joe navigates the new demands of an old

friendship with a university colleague, played by the marvellous Catherine Keener. Meanwhile, the family is surrounded by Genova’s gorgeous jumble of medieval, Renaissance and contemporary influences.

Genova is a mood piece, an exploration of what agonizing loss can provoke in a family. Firth is the ideal choice for the father, his restraint barely concealing a well of emotion. Holland stands out as a girl on the brink of womanhood, itching to know more but unaware of what that knowledge may bring.

The film shows shades of Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, but it is Winterbottom’s own artistic sensibility that defines Genova. Expert to the point of looking effortless, his approach includes agile camerawork that keeps the atmosphere constantly unsettled.

This is a beautiful, slow burn of a film, made with insight, passion and grace.

Cameron Bailey, Toronto International Film Festival Programme Print Source: Metrodome Distribution Producer: Andrew Eaton Screenplay: Laurence Coriat, Michael Winterbottom

• Colin Firth will be in atendance at this screening.

Turn It Loose

The Possibility of an Island

Today is Better than Two Tomorrows

Friday 20 February Movies@Dundrum / 8.00pm

Friday 20 February Light House / 8.15pm

Saturday 21 February Cineworld 9 / 2.00pm

Director: Alistair Siddons 2007 / USA / 96 minutes

Director: Michel Houellebecq 2007 / France / 96 minutes

Director: Anna Rodgers 2006 / Ireland / 80 minutes

Featuring: Ben J, Lilou, Roxrite, Hong 10

Principal Cast: Benoît Magimel, Patrick Bauchau, Ramata Koite

In September 2007, 16 of the world’s best B-Boys battle one on one in a disused power station in the heart of Soweto, South Africa, to determine who will be the next world champion. Through the eyes of six competitors we leave behind any preconceived notions of what breakdance used to represent, and as the film digs deeper into their lives, we discover an extraordinary form of non-contact combat that has evolved over 30 years to become a truly 21st century global phenomenon, stretching the limits of physical capability and pushing dance itself to astonishing new heights.

This eerily distinctive feature is inspired by Michel Houellebecq’s futuristic novel of 2005, but it isn’t an adaptation as such, more a radically-reduced contemplation of its key themes: belief systems, cloning, humanity’s precarious future, and Houellebecq’s enduring obsession, the probably futile pursuit of happiness. Magimel plays Daniel, the son of a prophet, who goes round seedy conference halls peddling a snake-oil gospel of eternal salvation.

Drawn together by a dream to be the best, what quickly becomes clear is that these B-Boys are a unique breed of athletes exceptionally skilled in a craft with no formal training that combines martial arts, gymnastics and dance. For this is still a street culture, born out of poverty and hardship that has pushed our characters to the very top of their game, we become absorbed and involved in their journey through the competition.

A few years on, the prophet is a powerful figure, working hand in hand with a team of cloning scientists. Many, many more years down the line, Daniel – or his distant cloned descendant – may be the last man on earth, combing a desolate landscape (the Canaries, at their bleakest) for remnants of the human apocalypse. Veering unsettlingly between poker-faced social satire, cartoonish farce (in Houellebecq’s tilts at the follies of tourism) and eerie futurism, The Possibility of an Island won’t infuriate in the way that his novels do, but with its echoes of Kubrick, Resnais and Alphaville, it is a haunting, stylish and confident contribution to the field of art-house meta-sci-fi.

Today is Better than Two Tomorrows, by Irish director Anna Rodgers, is a meditative observational tale of innocence and experience, as we encounter the coming of age of youth through traditional rites of passage in a remote Buddhist land.

Leh and Bo are two young boys from an isolated village on the Mekong River in Laos.

Having spent their lives living the same hut, the boys will be sent in opposite directions in a bid to give them a better future. Leh will be ordained as a novice monk in a city nine hours away. Bo will be sent to a foster family. This film captures these boys at this turning point in their lives.

Jonathan Romney, London Film Festival Programme • Director Michel Houellebecq will be in attendance at this screening.

Print Source: Partizan Producer: Josh Pitt

Print Source: Celluloid Dreams Producers: Miléna Poylo, Gilles Sacuto Screenplay: Michel Houellebecq

Print Source: Ripple World Pictures Producer: David Rane

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 87

Special Presentation The Burning Plain Saturday 21 February Savoy 1 / 11.00am Director: Guillermo Arriaga 2008 / USA / 111 minutes Principal Cast: Charlize Theron, Kim Basinger, Jennifer Lawrence, Joaquim de Almeida, Tessa Ia A one-man revolution in cinematic storytelling, Academy Award-nominee Guillermo Arriaga is best known as the screenwriter for director Alejandro Gonzàlez Iñàrritu’s critically acclaimed films Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel, as well as Tommy Lee Jones’s The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. In his directorial debut, Arriaga assumes full control of The Burning Plain, as beautifully constructed and emotionally moving as anything he has ever crafted.

The first image is both shocking and striking: an old trailer home in a parched landscape, consumed in a blazing fire. From there, Arriaga doubles back to explore a series of relationships among several characters who at first appear unrelated. Marina (Jennifer Lawrence) is a sixteen-yearold girl in a Mexican border town, coming to terms with her parents’ increasingly dysfunctional relationship.

Hundreds of miles away in Portland, Oregon, Sylvia (Charlize Theron) is a self-destructive, tormented young woman. As she comes and goes from the high-end restaurant where she works, she is followed by a mysterious man. Back in the southwest, Gina (Kim Basinger, in an intensely affecting

role) and Nick (Joaquim de Almeida) are in the throes of a passionate, illicit love affair. And Maria (Tessa Ia) is an adolescent girl on a border-crossing voyage to reunite her estranged mother with her badly injured, hospitalised father. As Arriaga draws us deeper into each character’s world, the bonds that unite them begin to come into focus.

Arriaga draws new subtleties from Theron, an actor who has already established an impressive collection of performances. The film’s lush, classical look serves as a lovely counterpoint to the daring twists of the story. Shot by cinematographer Robert Elswit (There Will Be Blood, Michael Clayton), The Burning Plain could succeed as a beautiful mood piece alone. But the way Arriaga introduces, observes and connects his characters reveals a director pursuing far more than just style. As in his earlier stories directed by Iñárritu, Arriaga combines audacious narrative decisions with an emotional impact that is direct and straight to the heart.

Michèle Maheux, Toronto International Film Festival Programme Print Source: High Fliers Films plc Producers: Walter Parkes, Laurie MacDonald Screenplay: Guillermo Arriaga

Delta

Lasair 4 Premiere

Bitter and Twisted

Saturday 21 February Light House / 2.00pm

Saturday 21 February Light House / 4.00pm

Saturday 21 February Cineworld 9 / 4.10pm

Director: Kornél Mundruczó 2008 / Hungary / Germany / 92 minutes

Filmbase and TG4 are proud to launch the premiere of Round 4 of the Lasair short film scheme. The films showcase exciting work from new and emerging filmmakers working in the Irish language.

Director: Christopher Weekes 2008 / Australia / 90 minutes

Finscéal Pháidí Writer / Director: Colm Bairéad When 9 year-old Páidí discovers his stepfather-to-be is the evil creature from Ireland’s most famous myth, there’s only one thing he can do. Spurred on by a mysterious Hooded Figure and the counsel of his adventurer Grandad, Páidí sets out to follow in the footsteps of the ancient Irish warriors and slay his foe, before his family is lost forever...

The Lombard family has been steadily disintegrating since the death of oldest son Liam three years before. The descent is slow and soft, manifesting itself in a personal crisis for each family member.

Obese father Jordan is caught in a vicious cycle of overeating while Mother Penny harbors a hysterical false hope that she may be pregnant and suffers a rude awakening when she discovers that, on the contrary, she has started menopause. Son Ben is not sure if he is gay or straight, but he knows that he has very strong feelings for the girl across the cul-de-sac - his dead brother’s ex-girlfriend - who also happens to be having a tragic affair with a married man.

Principal Cast: Félix Lajkó, Orsi Tóth, Lili Monori

A quiet young man returns to his village in the Danube delta, an isolated region virtually cut off from the surrounding world.

Here, he meets the sister he has never known. After she is brutally raped by her stepfather, brother and sister build a house in a remote area of the marshes. Their close relationship soon becomes the subject of village gossip and their housewarming party leads to tragic consequences. Scripted by former Jancsó collaborator, Yvette Bíró, Kornél Mundruczó’s visually stunning film fulfils his earlier promise (Pleasant Days, Johanna) with a spare, beautifully paced work worthy of the great traditions of Hungarian cinema.

Dealing with the eternal themes of human nature at its best and worst, Mundruczó makes striking use of the waterways and small islands of his unusual landscape.

With its slow travelling shots and stunning images of nature, it’s a compelling exercise in cinematic style with echoes of both Béla Tarr and Werner Herzog.

Peter Hames, London Film Festival Programme

Print Source: ICA Films Producers: Philippe Bober, Viktória Petrányi Screenplay: Yvette Bíró, Kornél Mundruczó

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90 • Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009

Douglas Hide Director: Vincent Gallagher Based on true events and set in the 1930’s, the film features two friends from opposite sides of town, who share a voracious passion for hurling. When local pride and sporting politics interfere, it sparks a bitter fall-out between the two, and has unforeseen consequences for the first President of the Ireland.

Tóg Mise Leat Writer/Director: Aaron O’Reilly It’s Christmas Eve when David realises the big secret. Isolated and lonely, he sets out to change his future and to escape a fabricated world. This is a tale of childhood and Christmas beliefs.

Principal Cast: Noni Hazlehurst, Steve Rodgers, Leeanna Walsman, Christopher Weekes

Director Christopher Weekes, remarkably captures the way a family can fold after an unexpected death. He develops the crisis of each family member with an almost clinical precision while keeping the overall tone somewhat dreamy. This stirring depiction of quiet desperation is perfectly accompanied by a warm, melancholic soundtrack of Nick Drake songs.

David Kwok, Tribeca Film Festival Programme

Print Source: Odin’s Eye Entertainment Producer: Bridget Callow Screenplay: Christopher Weekes

Sugar

Johnny Mad Dog

Special Archive Event The Seasons

Saturday 21 February Cineworld 17 / 6.00pm

Saturday 21 February Cineworld 9 / 6.00pm

Saturday 21 February IFI 1 / 7.30pm

Directors: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck 2007 / USA / 114 minutes

Director: Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire 2008 / France / Belgium / Liberia / 97 minutes

1935 / Ireland / 60 mins

Principal Cast: Algenis Pérez Soto

Principal Cast: Christopher Minie, Daisy Victoria Vandy

In the Dominican Republic, young, baseballobsessed men like Miguel “Sugar” Santos pin their hopes on becoming one of the chosen few to be lifted out of poverty for a shot at the big time.

Sugar makes it, at least to the first step.

Flown first to spring training in Arizona then to a minor league team in Bridgewater, Iowa, he is the proverbial fish out of water. He rooms with a kindly older couple who have taken in many young baseball prospects, but when a nagging injury delays his advancement, he simply slips away.

After beginning in familiar narrative terrain, the film breaks free of expectations, which allows it to explore the real possibilities in Sugar’s life. Algenis Pérez Soto, who was recruited by the directors on a Dominican baseball diamond for this role, brings an authenticity that buoys the film’s naturalism. At the same time, this is an extraordinarily painterly film, finding beauty both in an endless Iowa cornfield and in the more constrained surroundings that hold the fulfillment of Sugar’s American dream.

In an unnamed African country, 15-year-old Johnny Mad Dog heads a platoon of soldiers who are younger than he is. Charged with taking over a city in an attempt to unseat the government, Johnny leads this band of killers on a murderous rampage toward their destination, leaving mayhem in their wake. Meanwhile, the studious Laokolé lives with her young brother and disabled father and dreams of a better life, until Johnny’s hurricane of destruction comes her way. As Johnny advances, Laokolé flees her home.

Filmed in Liberia, with a great young cast, a number of whom lived through the horrors of conflicts similar to those depicted here, Johnny Mad Dog is a visually dazzling modern war film that presents thrilling, occasionally surreal action, while acknowledging the hellish plight of children involved in warfare with poignancy and pertinence. Impressively directed and scripted by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire, adapted from the novel by Emmanuel Dongala, the film was produced by Mathieu Kassovitz and Benoît Jaubert.

Meticulously shot in back and white and in colour The Seasons is a technically adept and remarkably thorough anthropology of a small village in days gone by.

No record of the film’s original exhibition exists but we can assume it was introduced locally

by Dr Lyons and accompanied perhaps by a pianist – or simply by the excited murmour of people recognising themselves. At this screening harpist Cormac de Barra will embark on a musical journey with Colm and Rossa O Snodaigh from Kila and conjure up a magical soundscape to breathe life back into the village of Kilkelly.

• With music by Rossa and Colm O Snodaigh and harpist Cormac de Barra. Presented in conjunction with The Irish Film Archive.

Cameron Bailey, Toronto International Film Festival Programme Print Source: Axiom Films Producers: Paul Mezey, Jamie Patricof, Jeremy Kipp Walker Screenplay: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck

The Seasons is an intimate diary of life in the little village of Kilkelly, Co Mayo in 1935.

Made by amateur film-maker and Dispensary Doctor, Dr John Benignus Lyons, The Seasons charts the social and agricultural life of the village over the course of a year - from the ploughing of land and the sowing of seeds; the footing of turf and the churning of butter, the study in school and the handball games; the Patron’s Day Fair and the harvest; to the blanket of snow at the year’s end.

Print Source: Momentum Pictures Producers: Benoît Jaubert, Mathieu Kassovitz, Screenplay: Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire

Print Source: The Irish Film Archive

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 91

Ireland’s Premiere Lighting Company Film, TV, Stage & Event Lighting Hire – Sales – Installation Complete range of generators & transport Over 30 Years Experience in the Film Industry

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Special Presentation Five Minutes of Heaven Saturday 21 February Savoy 1 / 6.15pm Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel 2008 / United Kingdom / Ireland / 90 minutes Principal Cast: Liam Neeson, James Nesbitt, Niamh Cusack, Anamaria Marinca

Since the outbreak of peace, Northern Ireland wrestles with the question of how to forgive the seemingly unforgiveable.

Five Minutes of Heaven traces the lives of two Ulstermen; one a murderer, the other the brother of the man he killed. Since 1975 each of these two have lived in dread of encountering the other. One, Alistair, feels he dare not ask forgiveness, the other, Joe, feels incapable of giving it. When they do eventually meet, Joe is armed and on the point of having his revenge, when something extraordinary happens – something that will change the rest of their lives.

One Friday evening a seventeen-yearold drives up to the house of a man he has never met. He gets out of his car, knocks on the man’s door and shoots him five times, twice in the head. The assassinated man is James Griffin. He was twenty-one. His eight-year-old brother was playing in the front garden at the time – and so he watched it all from just a few feet away. If the assassin had known that this little boy was related, he would have shot him in the head as well.

This is masterfully conceived drama - written by Guy Hibbert (Omagh) and perfectly directed by German filmmaker Oliver Hirschbiegel - that tracks the lives of two men from the same town but different sides of the Irish political divide and is unlike any other on this subject. The leads are Liam Neeson and James Nesbitt, and they are both superb. But the film’s careful construction is what transforms this from predictable to transcendent.

The film is replete with an almostexquisite sensitivity and quest for understanding. It is perhaps impossible to erase the past, but we are better off for encountering it with the kind of passion and insight emanating from a true work of art.

Sundance Film Festival Programme Print Source: Element Pictures Producers: Eoin O’Callaghan. Stephen Wright Screenplay: Guy Hibbert

• Oliver Hirschbiegel, Liam Neeson and James Nesbitt will be in attendance at this screening.

My Only Sunshine (Hayat Var)

Let the Right One In The Daisy Chain (Låt Den Rätte Komma In)

Saturday 21 February Light House / 8.15pm

Saturday 21 February Cineworld 17 / 8.20pm

Saturday 21 February Cineworld 9 / 8.30pm

Director: Reha Erdem 2008 / Turkey / 121 minutes

Director: Tomas Alfredson 2008 / Sweden / 114 minutes

Principal Cast: Elit İşcan, Erdal Beşikçioğlu, Levend Yılmaz

Principal Cast: Kåre Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar, Henrik Dahl, Karin Bergquist, Peter Carlberg, Ika Nord, Mikael Rahm

Director: Aisling Walsh 2008 / United Kingdom / Ireland / 91 minutes

Director Reha Erdem returns with My Only Sunshine, two years after the massive success of his previous film Beş Vakit (Times and Winds). Hayat (14), her father and bedridden grandfather live in a riverside shack near the dangerously dark but breathtakingly beautiful waters of the Bosporus. Hayat’s father owns a small boat that secures the family’s survival trough a miscellany of not always lawful ventures.

Beyond the motion and romance of the water, Hayat’s life is harsh and unrelenting.

Fragile and anxious, 12-year-old Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) is regularly bullied by his stronger classmates. The lonely boy’s wish for a friend seems to come true when he meets Eli (Lina Leandersson), also 12, who moves in next door to him. A pale, serious young girl, she only comes out at night and doesn’t seem affected by the freezing temperatures. Coinciding with Eli’s arrival is a series of inexplicable disappearances and murders. One man is found tied to a tree, another frozen in the lake, a woman bitten in the neck. Blood seems to be the common denominator—and for an introverted boy like Oskar, it doesn’t take long before he figures out that Eli is a vampire. But by now a subtle romance has blossomed between them, and she gives him the strength to fight back against his aggressors. Director Tomas Alfredson and screenwriter John Ajvide Lindqvist weave friendship, rejection and loyalty into a disturbing and darkly atmospheric, yet poetic and unexpectedly tender tableau of adolescence.

But Hayat has an instinct for survival.

Shot with the dark and beautiful waters of Istanbul’s Bosporus central to the story, Hayat’s capacity for courage, endurance and hope in the face of these trials suggest that there is life despite the manifold injustice of an unjust world.

• Director Reha Erdem will be in attendance at this screening.

Principal Cast: Samantha Morton, Steven Mackintosh, Eva Birthistle

Following the tragic death of their daughter, young couple Martha and Thomas move to a remote Irish village. There they take under their wing Daisy, an autistic child whose own parents have died in a strangely ritualistic fire. Daisy seems to settle in with the couple, and Martha finds a kindred spirit in her grief, but a growing antagonism towards the young girl from the locals, linking her to strange occurrences and uncovering tales of faeries, changelings and the malevolent spirits of a bygone age.

Aisling Walsh’s first feature since the multi-award winning Song for a Raggy Boy blends the supernatural with raw real-world emotions, wonderfully expressed

by Samantha Morton as Martha. Amongst a stand-out cast, it is 10 year old Mhairi Anderson, as Daisy, who gives the most stunning performance. A troubled young girl, an innocent child and at the same time feared by the witch-hunting locals, this young actress keeps us guessing of the terrifying conclusion.

Denver Film Festival Programme Raindance Film Festival Programme • Aisling Walsh will be in attendance at this screening.

Print Source: Atlantik Film Producer: Ömer Atay Screenplay: Reha Erdem

94 • Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009

Print Source: Momentum Pictures Producers: Carl Molinder, John Nordling Screenplay: John Ajvide Lindqvist, based on his own novel

Print Source: Subotica Entertainment Producers: Tristan Orpen Lynch, Dominic Wright Screenplay: Lauren McKenzie

Special Presentation Marley & Me Sunday 22 February Savoy 1 / 11.00am Director: David Frankel USA / 2008 / 120 minutes Principal Cast: Jennifer Aniston, Owen Wilson, Haley Bennett, Almudena Alcazar, Ana Ayora

As the snow falls on their wedding night, newlyweds John and Jenny Grogan decide to leave behind the harsh winters of Michigan and head south to begin their new lives in West Palm Beach, Fla. They obtain jobs as journalists at competing local newspapers, buy their first home, and begin to make their way through the challenges of a new marriage, new careers and, possibly, the life-changing decision to start a family. Unsure of his preparedness for raising children, John confesses his fears to his friend and fellow journalist Sebastian, who comes up with the perfect solution: John should get Jenny a puppy.

The Grogans adopt the cute, 12-pound yellow Labrador, who in no time at all, grows into a 100-pound steamroller of unbridled energy that turns the Grogan

home into a disaster area. He flunks obedience school, chews off dry-wall, takes a bite out of the sofa, overturns garbage cans, steals a Thanksgiving turkey, consumes pillows and flowers, drinks toilet water, and chases the UPS guy. Even a newly-purchased, expensive necklace isn’t safe from Marley’s voracious antics. Amidst the mayhem he generates through the years, Marley sees the Grogans through the ups and downs of family life, through job and home changes, and most of all, through the myriad challenges of a growing family. As John and Jenny come to realize, Marley--”the world’s worst dog”--somehow brings out the best in them Print Source: Twentieth Century Fox Producers: Gil Netter, Karen Rosenfelt Screenplay: Scott Frank, Don Roos, based on the novel by John Grogan

Sunday Matinee Last Chance Harvey Sunday 22 February Savoy 1 / 2.00pm Director: Joel Hopkins 2008 / UK / USA / 120 minutes Principal Cast: Dustin Hoffmann, Emma Thompson, Kathy Baker, James Brolin

Last Chance Harvey is writer-director Joel Hopkins’ meditation on loneliness and love coming at a time in life when you might think those chances have all played out. Everything works in this upllifting and hopeful film, with beautifully attenuated performances by Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson, who slip into the characters Hopkins has sewn for them like an old sweater.

Harvey (Hoffman) finds his poorly paid job as a jingle-writer in jeopardy as he heads to London for his daughter’s marriage – his having fractured and died years ago. His relationship with daughter Susan hasn’t turned out as he’d planned either.

Life for Kate (Thompson) is waning too. In her 40s and single, she spends her days in data collection at Heathrow Airport, asking other people about what we can only guess are their far more interesting lives. Kate’s upper lip may be stiff, but in Thompson’s good

hands every blow is quietly recorded – in the sag in her shoulders, the deep breath taken on the sly, the tears that she wills not to fall. Thompson lets us witness Kate’s pain without pity, a neat trick indeed.

When the two cross paths, love gradually begins to bloom. The usually verbal Hoffman makes great use of silence and restraint, patient in unexpected moments, standing back to allow Kate time to feel. There are other fine turns, especially Atkins as Kate’s concerned and smothering mother, but the film, really, is carried ever so gently on the shoulders of Thompson and Hoffman (shoulders that have rightfully borne the weight of multiple Oscars). This is a heart-warming tale of first loves, last chances and everything in between.

Betsy Sharkey, LA Times Print Source: Momentum Pictures Producers: Tim Perell, Nicola Usborne Screenplay: Joel Hopkins

Special Offer for JDIFF Patrons

To celebrate the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival, Film Ireland are offering all JDIFF patrons the opportunity to purchase the January /February issue of the magazine at half-price. To purchase your specially-priced copy of Film Ireland, simply present a valid ticket for any JDIFF screening at Filmbase reception (beside the festival box office).

Filmbase is a resource centre for filmmakers located in the heart of Dublin's Temple Bar. Filmbase supports Irish filmmakers with film and documentary production awards, industry-based training courses, equipment rental, editing facilities and information services.

Filmbase is supported by the Arts Council.

Film Funding • Film Equipment • Film Training Filmbase: www.filmbase.ie • Film Ireland: www.filmireland.net

SUPPORTED BY

New Town Killers

Three Blind Mice

In the City of Sylvia (Dans le Ville de Sylvia)

Sunday 22 February Cineworld 9 / 2.00pm

Sunday 22 February Cineworld 9 / 4.00pm

Sunday 22 February Light House / 4.00pm

Director: Richard Jobson 2008 / United Kingdom / 90 minutes

Director: Matthew Newton 2008 / Australia / 94 minutes

Director: José Luis Guerín 2007 / Spain / 84 minutes

Principal Cast: James Anthony Pearson, Dougray Scott, Alastair Mackenzie

Principal Cast: Ewen Leslie, Toby Schmitz, Matthew Newton, Gracie Otto, Charles Tingwell

Principal Cast: Pilar López de Ayala, Xavier Lafitte, Laurence Cordier

Teenager Sean Kelly lives with his sister Alice on a rough housing estate on the outskirts of Edinburgh. With their parents gone and prospects limited, the pair struggle to get by. Alice has accumulated serious debts, and now lenders are ruthlessly calling them in. Desperate to get his sister out of trouble, Sean is presented with the chance by two mysterious strangers, Alistair and Jamie who will give him the money he needs if he takes part in a hide and seek game over the course of one night. Sean is not long into the hunt before he realizes that the men have sinister intentions, and that he will be lucky if he survives the night.

Three young Australian naval officers have been at sea for six months, and have twenty-four hours shore leave in Sydney before shipping out to Iraq. Each has a personal agenda: Dean wants to see his fiancée and cement their future plans, Harry is hell-bent on a night of excess and Sam just wants to stay out of trouble. With the glittering, sophisticated city of Sydney at their feet, these very different men are propelled into an adventure that holds unexpected outcomes for all.

A nameless young man arrives in Strasbourg and spends his days sitting at an outdoor café, sketching the figures of the women around him, patiently waiting for Sylvia to appear. He finally thinks he sees her and gives chase, but it turns out to be someone else. He resumes his quest for his lost love and the innocence he longs to regain.

Sylvia’s presence lingers, but it is impossible to return to the past.

Director Richard Jobson is clearly wearing political concerns on his sleeve in his latest film, and is to be admired for it. New Town Killers is an ambitious and kinetic thriller, a tension-packed joyride through Edinburgh streets; it is obvious Jobson knows the city well, and that he loves it; he presents it wonderfully.

While rightfully billed as a psychological drama, the unexpected delight of Three Blind Mice is its humour. From all manner of clever, ribald asides to the utter failure of Dean’s dinner with his soon-to-be in-laws, Newton deftly orchestrates the drama and the laughter for maximum effect. Still, the comedy only serves to remind us that we are witnessing three bright, strong but frightened young men on the brink of being plunged into a war they don’t understand.

Director José Luis Guerín is clearly interested in the artist and his interminable gaze on his subjects. We become the voyeurs, seeing everything through the eyes of the handsome young man. In the City of Sylvia imparts nostalgia for days when it was plausible to search for love, wander streets aimlessly and immerse oneself in a foreign place: the freedom to do as one pleases.

Guerín carefully crafts the pleasures of youth, art and love in Sylvia’s hometown.

Diana Sanchez, Toronto International Film Festival Programme

Michael Hayden, London Film Festival Programme

Print Source: High Fliers Films Producer: Luc Roeg Screenplay: Richard Jobson

Print Source: Odin’s Eye Entertainment Producer: Ben Davis Screenplay: Matthew Newton

Print Source: Axiom Films Producers: Luis Miñarro, Gaëlle Jones Screenplay: José Luis Guerín

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 99

Surprise Film

Sunday 22 February Savoy 1 / 5.30pm

After the programme is finally confirmed and gone to the printers, my attention turns to the selection of the Surprise Film screening. Looking back over previous choices, some trends emerge, it has always been in colour, always in the English language, and thematically, the slot has also provided a high proportion of comedies, often American in origin. And of course, it has also always been a new film, a sneak preview of a film, months away from release.

Please note that these musings are not clues, but serve only to give some kind of a rationale on this most popular part of the festival programme. I would suggest to all those lucky enough to get tickets for this years screening to expect the unexpected.

Let the guessing begin!

Gráinne Humphreys, Festival Director

Please note All information in this programme is correct at the time of publication.

Programme is subject to change.

For updates on last minute additions, interviews and podcasts, go to www.jdiff.com Tell us what you think – good or bad! Email us on feedback@jdiff.com

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102 • Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009

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Closing Film The Secret of Kells Sunday 22 February Savoy 1 / 8.30pm Director: Tomm Moore 2009 Belgium / Ireland / France / 75 minutes Featuring the Voice Talent of: Brendan Gleeson, Mick Lally, Evan McGuire, Christen Mooney

Each year the festival unveils a selection of the best of contemporary Irish cinema and it is with real delight that this years JDIFF celebrates the emergence of a new filmmaking force in world animation.

An international co-production initiated by the incredibly talented staff of Cartoon Saloon, Tomm Moore’s celebrated first feature tells a story inspired the creation of our national treasure The Book of Kells.

Set in 9th century Ireland, the film opens in the fortified Kells Abbey, whose outer walls provide the last line of defence against the omnipresent danger of invasion by the Vikings, while also acting as a frustrating limit to the playground of our hero, a twelve-year-old boy named Brendan (Evan McGuire). His uncle, the stern, forbidding Abbott Cellach (Brendan Gleeson) rules the abbey with an iron rod but despite this, young Brendan finds a new source of fun and friendship with Brother Aidan (Mick Lally) and his motley crew of illuminators who work on the abbey’s greatest treasure The Book of Kells. They show him the beauty of art which stimulates his creativity and fantasy. As the constant threat of invasion hangs over the monks, young Brendan, emboldened by the passion of the illuminators, ventures outside the walls of his childhood prison and finds inspiration and danger in equal measures.

Director Tomm Moore has included a number of different animation techniques to bring this story to life – through hand-drawn animation, computer animation and flash

animated backgrounds, he has created a wholly integrated universe. From the sombre, enclosed spaces of the Abbey to the richness of the work of the master illuminators, Moore’s team has fashioned a colour palate of incredible depth and design. However, for this viewer it is the sequences when the young Brendan ventures in the forests outside the abbey that will stay within the memory for years to come. In these spectacular sequences, Brendan meets the forest sprite named Aisling and experiences the joy of the outside world. It is hard to find the words to describe the breathtaking beauty of the animation on display, the detail and the colour are superb, the emotion of a young boy liberated are captured in the exuberant energy which can only be described in terms of a Busby Berkeley musical. And music is a key element of this wonderful film. The contribution of composer Bruno Coulais and Irish legends Kíla provide a soundtrack of beauty and playfulness.

Animated films are extremely timeconsuming, there are many months and often years involved in producing each feature. The award-winning members of Cartoon Saloon have produced a breathtaking film, a story of a young boy whose curiosity lures him into a world of the imagination, a spectacular world which inspires him. After seeing the film, you will feel the same.

Gráinne Humphreys Print Source: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Ireland Producers: Didier Brunner, Tomm Moore, Viviane Vanfleteren, Paul Young Screenplay: Tomm Moore, Fabrice Ziolkowski

Board & Staff Board of Directors

Staff

Mary Alleguen

Chief Executive Officer Joanne O’Hagan

Hospitality Manager Aideen Darcy

Festival Director Gráinne Humphreys

Guest Liaison Stephanie Karamanolis

Festival Operations Manager Sarah Smyth

Festival Publicist Jenny Sharif, Kate Bowe PR

Accounts Manager Miriam McLoughlin

Marketing Assistant Emily Gotto

Production Manager Liam Ryan

Box Office Manager Sarah Murphy

Production Co-Ordinator Kate McEvoy

Volunteers Co-Ordinator Louise Acheson

Print Transport/Programme Assistant Raelene Casey

Administration Assistant Ray Hyland

Programme Editor Colm McAuliffe

Administration Assistant Lorna McGahern

Paddy Breathnach Sue Bruce-Smith Clare Duignan Michael Dwyer, Chairman Jonathan Kelly Arthur Lappin David McLoughlin Martine Moreau James Morris Gaby Smyth

JDIFF 08, Opening Night Gala, In Bruges - Colin Farrell.

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 105

Thank You The Festival Board & Team would like to extend their sincere gratitude to the many volunteers whose spirit and generosity have enabled us to realise the ambition of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival.

All The Staff At Cineworld Cinema All The Staff At Filmbase All The Staff At The Irish Film Institute All The Staff At Movies@Dundrum All The Staff At The Light House Cinema All The Staff At The Screen All The Staff At The Savoy All The Staff At Robot Display All The Staff At The Conrad Hotel All The Staff At Ron Blacks All The Staff At Cafe Sol Alan Collins Alan Maher Alison Crinion Allison Gardner Amanda Wong Andy Bradford Andrew Freedman Andrew Youdell Anna Godas Anna Lavery Anna Taylor Anne Gartside Annemarie Downes Aoife Lynch Ardmore Sound Ltd. Audrey Sheils Barbara Murphy Barbara Stone Bob Gray Brendan McCauley Brendan McCarthy Brian Furey Bruno Bussetti Catherine O’Grady Celine Cawley Chris Upton Cillian Barry Claire Bourgeois Dan Denison David Burke David Collins David Shear Declan Sheehy Derek Byrne Des Doyle Donal Sheils

Donnacha Brady Donald Clarke Dr Kevin Rockett Dublin Docklands Authority Dublin Fringe Festival Dunne and Crescenzi Eamonn Fleming Ed Sammon Edel Kelly Eden Restaurant Eithne Billington Elaine Grange Elaine Kinsella Emma O’Beirne Feena O’Brien Fintan Murphy Fiona Curtin Fionnuala Sweeeny Frank Mannion Frank O’Grady Gav O’Reilly George Kearns Gerard Stembridge Giorgia Lo Savio Heidrun Rottke Helen McMahon Helge Albers Hire Intelligence House of Fraser, Dundrum Hubert Montag Ian Jacobs Ian Murray Isabelle Etienne Jack Gilligan Jake Walshe James Mather Jane Fitzpatrick Jane O’Keefe Jane Callaghan Jarlaith Jennings Jason Butler Jason Solomons Jayne Murphy Jean Scally Jennie Rothwell Jennifer Healy Jill Harding Jim Keenan Jim Kelly Joe Moreau

Joe Quigley John Carroll John Hayes John Kelleher John Kelly Johnny Byrne Johnny O’Meara Julian Douglas Kate Bowe Kate Lambert Kate McCullagh Katie Maloney Keith Fallon Keith McGuinness Ken Wardrop Kevin O’Brien Killian Keating Kohloon Loke Laura Martin Lenny Abrahamson Leo Ward Lina Chamie Linda Dagge Lizette Gram Mygind Locky Butler Louise Kiely Louise Ryan Lyndzi Doyle Maeve O’Meara Maretta Dillon Margaret Gilsenan Martin Mangan Mary Cloake Mary Weir Maryse Fitzpatrick Michael Ellis Michael O’Toole Mick Beecher Millie Blaney Mobile Radio Links Moira Tierney Myles Dungan Nancy Bishop Naoimh Ni Mhaolagain Neil Connolly Niamh McCaul Nicola Breslin Nick Costello Nick O’Donovan Nikola Sekowska

Paddy O’Toole Patrick Dunne Patrick Jordan Patrick Murphy Paul Ellis Paul Fadden Paul Ward Pedro Eliud Cisneros Cuervo Phil Kelly Philips, Dame St. Ray Dempsey Red&Grey Design Richard Black Richard Weld-Moore Ruth Bradley Ruth Spurling Sandra O’Donohue Sarah Glennie Screen Scene Ltd. Sean Doyle Sean McMahon Seiya Sharon McGarry Shayne Murphy Simon Perry Siobhán Farrell Slate Sony Centre Stuart Fogarty Sunniva O’Flynn Supt. Ray Barry Tara Brady Temple Bar Cultural Trust The Trocadero The Laptop Shop Tim Fleming Tim Morris Todd McCarthy Tom Coffey Tom O’Haire Tony Fitzpatrick Tower Records Toytown Films Tracy Ryan Trish Long Una McCarthy Vik Kumar Vincent Donnelly Violina Antcheva

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 107

viewing:sessions 09 27/03–29/03/2009

REGIONAL CULTURAL CENTRE, LETTERKENNY

a resource organisation for regional cultural cinema exhibition

access›cinema works with arts centres, local groups and arts festivals to expand cultural film exhibition regionally. If you want to know more about how you can develop film activity in your area then contact: t: +353 1 679 4420 f: +353 1 679 4166 e: info@accesscinema.ie www.accesscinema.ie

Print Source

Artificial Eye Film Co. Ltd 20-22 Stukeley St. London WC2B 5LR T: +44 207 2405 353 F: +44 207 2405 242 E: info@artificial-eye.com Artists Confederacy 12540 Rubens Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90066 USA T: +1 310 578-1317 F: +1 310 578-7399 www.artistsconfederacy.com

Cineteca di Bologna Archivio Film Via dell’Industria, 2 40138 Bologna Italia T: +39 051 6018607 F: +39 051 6018628 cinetecaarchiviofilm1@ comune.bologna.it www.cinetecadibologna.it

Asphalt Films 422 N. Hayworth Ave. #7 Los Angeles, CA, 90048 USA T: + 1 3239511075

Contender Films 120 New Cavendish St. London W1W 6XX T: +44 207 907 3773 F: +44 207 907 3777 E : info@contendergroup.com www.contendergroup.com Cooper Films cooperfilms@hotmail.com

ATLANTIK FILM Üst Zerren Sok. No:2 Levent 34330 Istanbul Turkey T: + 90 212 278 36 11 F: + 90 212 278 19 71 www.atlantikfilm.com

Crossing the Line Films Barr an Uisce Killinacarrick Road Greystones Co. Wicklow T: +353-1 287 5394 info@ctlfilms.com

Avsar Film Omer Avni Mah.Imam Kerim Cikmazi No:2 34437 Gumussuyu Beyoglu Istanbul TURKEY T:+902122498587 F:+902122498552 info@avsarfilm.com.tr

Danish Film Institute Gother DK-1123 Copenhagen Denmark T: +45 337 43 400 F: +45 337 43 401 E: dfi@dfi.dk

Axiom Films 2nd Floor Above The Gate Cinema 87 Notting Hill Gate London W11 3JZ T: +44 20 7243 3111 F: +44 20 7243 3152 E: mail@axiomfilms.co.uk www.axiomfilms.co.uk Bavaria Film International Bavariafilmplatz 8 D-82031 Geiselgasteig Germany T: +49 89 6499 2686 F: +49 89 6499 3720 Bavaria.international@ bavaria-film.de www.bavaria-film.de Bleiberg Entertainment, Inc. 9454 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 200 Beverly Hills, CA 90212 USA T: 310-273-0003 F: 310-273-0007 CELLULOID DREAMS 2 rue Turgot – 75009 PARIS Tel. +33 1 49 70 85 64 Fax +33 1 49 70 03 71 info@celluloid-dreams.com www.celluloid-dreams.com Cinémathèque Royale / Koninklijk Filmarchief Ravenstein, 3 1000 Bruxelles/Brussel Tel.: 02 551 19 03 Fax: 02 551 19 07 clementine.deblieck@ cinematek.be

Eclipse Pictures 25 Hatch Place Dublin, Ireland T: +353 1 634 0121 F: +353 1 634 0125 E: mail@eclipsepictures.ie Element Pictures 21 Mespil Road Dublin 4 Ireland T: +353 1 618 5032 F: +353 1 664 3737 www.elementpictures.ie FILM KAIROS Via Anapo, 46 00199 ROMA Italy T: +39 06 85304329 F: +39 06 8546041 www.kairosfilm.it FILMAX INTERNATIONAL C/ Miguel Hérnández 81-87 Districte Econòmic L’Hospitalet de Llobregat E-08908 Barcelona Spain T +34 933 368 555 F +34 932 630 824 Filmes Do Tejo Av. Da Liberdade, 85, 3 1250-140 Lisboa Portugal T: +351 213 234400/1 filmesdotejo@filmesdotejo.pt Fortissimo Films Van Diemenstraat 100 1013 CN Amsterdam The Netherlands T: + 31 20 6273215 F:+31 20 6261155 info@fortissimo.nl

GENERATOR ENTERTAINMENT Twickenham Film Studios St. Margarets Twickenham TW1 2AW United Kingdom T: +44 (0)20 8607 8848

Irish Film Board Bord Scannan na hÉireann Queensgate, 23 Dock Road, Galway, Ireland T: +353 91 561 398 F: +353 91 561 405 E: info@filmboard.ie

Glass Eye Pix 18 Bridge St. #2G Brooklyn, NY 11201 USA T: +1 718-643-6911 F: +1 646-349-2700

Isaac Julien Studio info@isaacjulien.com John Riley T: +1 420 606 659 725

Goethe-Institut Irland 37 Merrion Square Dublin 2 T: +353 1 6611155 F: +353 1 6611358 Güleryüz Film guleryuzm@gmail.com High Fliers Films plc Gainsborough House, 2 Sheen Road, Richmond Upon Thames TW9 1AE UK T: +44 01932 589881 www.high-fliers.co.uk Institute of Contemporary Arts 12 Carlton House Terrace London SW1Y 5AH UK T: +44 (0)20 7930 0493 www.ica.org.uk Icon Film Distribution Solar House 915 High Road London T: +44 207 494 8100 F: +44 207 494 8151 www.iconmovies.co.uk Insomnia World Sales Festival & Communication Assistant 50 bis, rue de la Mare 75020 Paris FRANCE T: +33 (0)1 43 58 08 04 F: +33 (0)1 43 58 09 32 communication@insomniasales.com www.insomnia-sales.com Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía (Mexican Film Institute) International Film Festivals Insurgentes Sur 674, 2nd Floor, Del Valle 03100 Mexico City, Mexico.

T: +5255 54485345 F: +5255 54485380 difuinte@imcine.gob.mx www.imcine.gob.mx Irish Film Archive Irish Film Institute 6 Eustace Street Temple Bar Dublin 2 T: +353 1 679 5744 info@irishfilm.ie www.irishfilm.ie

Le Petit Bureau 29, rue Étienne Dolet 75020 Paris France T: +33 1.40.33.33.80 F: +33 1.40.33.10.20 lepetitbureau@wanadoo.fr Lionsgate (UK) Limited Ariel House 74a Charlotte Street London W1T 4QJ Tel: +44 (0) 207 299 8800 Fax: +44 (0) 207 299 8801 www.lionsgatefilms.co.uk m-appeal Prinzessinnenstr. 16 10969 Berlin Germany T: +49 30 61507505 F: +49 30 27582872 www.m-appeal.com Magic Box, a.s. – division Bioscop Na Klikovce 7 140 00 Prague 4 Czech Republic T: +420 221 436 255 Metrodome Group Plc. 3rd Floor, 72-74 Dean Street Royalty House London W1D 3SG T: +44 20 7534 2060 F: +44 20 7534 2062 info@metrodomegroup.com Miramar film Ltd. Sofia 1124, 40 Evlogi Georgiev blv., fl.1, app.1 Bulgaria T: +359 2 9463514 F: +359 2 9447268 www.miramarfilm.com Momentum Pictures 2nd Floor 184-192 Drummond Street London NW1 3HP T: +44 207 388 1100 F: +44 207 383 0404 www.momentumpictures. co.uk New Wave Films 10 Margaret Street London W1W 8RL T: +44 203178 7095 info@newwavefilms.co.uk Norwegian Film Institute Dronningensgate 16 P.O. Box 482 Sentrum N-0105 Oslo Sweden T: +47 22 47 45 75 www.nfi.no

Odin’s Eye Entertainment C/o – RLC Motion Pictures Pty Ltd Unit 11 (FSA#24) Building 103 Fox Studios Australia Driver Avenue Moore Park 1363 NSW, Australia info@odinseyeent.com Optimum Releasing 22 Newman Street London W1T 1PH T: +44 207 637 5403 F: +44 207 637 5408 www.optimumreleasing.com Park Circus Limited 22 -24 Woodlands Terrace Glasgow G3 6DF United Kingdom T: + 44 (0) 141 332 2175 F: + 44 (0) 870 836 2391 www.parkcircus.com Partizan 40/42 Lexington St London W1F OLN United Kingdom T: +44 207 851 0200 F: +44 207851 0249 www.partizan.com Planet Korda Pictures Ltd. 12E Thormanby Rd. Dublin 13 Ireland T: +353 1 8394520

Sony Pictures Releasing Seagrave House Earlsfort Terrace Dublin 2 Ireland T: +353 1 616 3200 F: + 353 1 616 3210 www.sonypictures.com

Vertigo Films The Big Room Studios 77 Fortess Road London NW5 1AG T: +44 (0)20 7428 7555 F: +44 (0) 20 7485 9713 E: mail@vertigofilms.com www.vertigofilms.com

SPEAKproductions speak@speakproductions. com T: + 1 646 352 1093

Verve Pictures 3rd Floor Kenilworth House 79-80 Margaret Street London W1W 8TA T 020 7436 8001 F 020 7436 8002 www.vervepics.com

Subotica Entertainment Ltd 11 Hume Street Dublin 2, Ireland T: +353 1 6622226 F: +353 1 6622227 info@subotica.ie Svenska Filminstitutet / Swedish Film Institute Box 27126 102 52 Stockholm, Sweden Filmhuset, Borgvägen 1 www.sfi.se TG4, 80 Sráid Fhearchair Bác 2 Dublin T: +353 1 476 3030 F: +353 1 476 3031 www.tg4.ie The Domino Project T: +353 1 214 0766 adominoproject@yahoo.ie

Pyramide International 5, rue du Chevalier de Saint George 75008 Paris France T: +33 1 4296 0220 F: + 33 1 40200251 www.pyramidefilms.com

The Media Factory Saul Zaentz Media Center 2600 Tenth St. Suite 600 Berkeley, CA 94710 USA T: USA: + 1 510 638 4871 T: Ireland: + 353 87 285 0063 www.mediafactory.tv

Revolver Entertainment P.O. Box 31643 London T: +44 (0) 20 7243 4300 F: +44 (0) 20 7243 4302 www.revolvergroup.com

The Weinstein Company 345 Hudson St., 13th Fl. New York, NY 10014 USA T: +1 646 8623495 F: +1 917 3686970 www.weinsteinco.com

Ripple World Pictures Ltd 6 Oaklands Park, Dublin 4, Ireland T: +353 1 445 0849 www.rippleworld.com Sarmasık Sanatlar Silahsör Cad. No:20-22 D:5 34381 Sisli Istanbul Türkiye T: +90.212.2195335 F: +90.212.2195334 info@sarmasiksanatlar.com Seagull Films 526 West 111th Street, Suite 2CC New York, NY 10025 USA T: +1 646-707-3879 F: +1 646-596-8744 www.seagullfilms.com

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Ireland 12 Parliament Street Dublin 2 Ireland T: +353 1 677 3484www. thefilmfactoryireland.com Warner Bros Pictures International (Ireland) 9 Townyard Lane Malahide Co. Dublin T: +353 1 845 1844 F: +353 1 845 1858 E: Patrick.boylan@ warnerbros.com Wildfire Films Olympia House, Suite 2B, 61-63 Dame Street, Dublin 2, Ireland.

T +353 1 672 5553 F +353 1 672 5573 info@wildfirefilms.net Zanita Films Ardmore Studios Herbert road Bray Co. Wicklow Ireland T: +353 1 2862971 F: +353 1 2760020 production@zanita.ie www.zanitafilms.com

The Works Film Distribution 4th Floor, Portland House 4 Great Portland Street London W11 8QJ T: +44 207 612 1080 F: +44 207 439 4196 www.theworkslimited.com Twentieth Century Fox 14 Kildare Street Dublin 2 Telephone: +353 1 661 7130 Fax: +353 1 661 7228 www.fox.com Universal Pictures (Ireland) 31-36 Golden Lane, Dublin 8 T: + 353 1 402 1110 F: + 353 1 478 4644

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 109

2009 JDIFF FESTIVAL BAR EVENTS AT RON BLACKS Enjoyed the film?? Then come along, after the screening to the festival bar @ Ron Blacks on Dawson St. Meet festival staff and other patrons & guests and explore the more social aspects of Irelands biggest film event. And why not have a glass of Jameson while you are there.

Thurs Feb 12th

Wed Feb 18th

Opening night party. *

The annual Film Festival Volunteer film quiz. Teams of volunteers go head to head to test their film knowledge. Participation is however open to all comers if you dare challenge the knowledge of our volunteers!! Great prizes on the night.

At Ron Blacks, you can be assured of excellent service, a varied menu and a wide selection of drinks. The festival bar is delighted to cater to your needs for a pre screening meal or a post screening pint.

Music from the movies. Come along for an evening of film related sounds from the greatest soundtracks.

Ron Blacks Café Bar & Restaurant, 37 Dawson St, Dublin 2. Tel: 01 672 8231.

Email: info@ronblacks.ie.

Web: www.ronblacks.ie

Mon Feb 16th Stand up at the Movies. An evening of stand up comedy with comedian Ed Sammon.

Tue Feb 17th

Thur Feb 19th Screen Cinema wrap party. Come join “Team Screen” and help them celebrate their festival.

Sun Feb 22nd JDIFF 09 closing party. *

www.jdiff.com * These are ticketed events only.

Finding new favourite films

To upload your favourite film log on to www.jdiff.com or www.screenclick.com

Amandeep Singh kuch kuch hota hai

alaric wanner lock, stock and 2 smoking barrels

Anne-Marie Ross Zoolander

connla lyons ALL THAT JAZZ

liam ryan heat

Terry Meehan Out of the Past

EOGHAN Kavanagh jaws

Susan Martin One Flew Over The Cuckoos NesT

bairbre ann harkin an affair to remember

Silvio Fuscardi The Godfather

amy redmond manhattan murder mystery

claire hawkins moulin rouge

gerry kelly fargo

Patrick kavanagh empire records

barbara alessandrini dogville

BOB GRAY LEON

mark greville pi

Marian McKenna Pulp Fiction

keith mcguinness toy story

daragh ward natural born killers

Graham donlon 2001: SPACE ODYSSEY

eoghan mcswiney the commitments

Deborah Collins one flew over the cuckoo’s nest

killian lonergan cool hand luke

lara hill my father is an engineer

Conor maguire the cabinet of DR.caligari

Betty Ramsay Rambo

e.j. mcvey MOULIN ROUGE

jenny sharif the young frankenstein

francesca gentile nuovo cinema paradiso

Alexandre Ricard North by Northwest

james foley cinema paradiso

soo yung hung Kung Fu Panda

Deirdre O’Sullivan Jason and the Argonauts

fins valenteyn PHONE BOOTH

d. mcgragan fear and loathing in las vegas

Bri mcGuinness Mamma Mia!

theresa mundell almost famous

anja holdermueller waking ned

Beverley Elder Brazil

kathleen ryder GONE WITH THE WIND

therese purcell life of brian

Padraic Regan The shawshank redemption

Sophie Longwill Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

brian o’riordan taxi driver

DAVID LYNCH sideways

f. dambricourt THE life of david gale

Louise Acheson REAR WINDOW

angela carr casablanca

John McKiernan Three ColoUrs Blue

maggie o’brien footloose

j.j. macken GENEVIEVE

regan heavey volver

ross mcguire manhattan

RICHARD WELDMOORE TRON

louise halpin The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009 • 111

Film Index

A

Franklyn

67

Of Parents And Children

American Friend, The

80

Frequently Asked Questions about Time Travel

68

Opera

61

American Teen

47

From The East

18

Our Wonderful Home

72

An Ranger

31

From The Other Side

19

Anvil! The Story of Anvil

82

Awaydays

81

B

G Genova

45

P Paradise

75

86

Pirate For The Sea

53

Possibility of An Island, The

87

Gigantic

61

76

Gitmek: My Marlon and Brando

58

Bigger Stronger Faster*

62

Good

52

R

Bitter and Twisted

90

Goodnight Irene

77

Religulous

77

Black Sea

48

Gran Torino

59

Revolution

49

Blue Eyelids

82

Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty

31

Rooster, The Crocodile and The Night Sky, The

31

Boy A

68

Grocer’s Son, The

49

Brief Encounter

79

Broken Lines

81

Bronson

54

Burn The Bridges

53

Burning Plain, The

89

Bart Got A Room

C Cadillac Records

53

Candidate, The

78

Captive, The

18

Cherrybomb

84

Chris & Don: A Love Story

83

Class, The

57

S Scratch

63

Havar

62

Seamstresses

67

Heart of Fire

76

Seasons, The

91

Helen

61

Secret of Kells, The

103

Hoor

31

Shapes

31

Housemaid, The

47

Shifty

79

Hush

48

Snow

68

Song For Dad, A

85

Song of Sparrows, The

55 18

H

I I Sell The Dead

58

South

Il Divo

73

Spaceman Three

31

In the City of Sylvia

99

Stone Pastures

84

Cloud 9

46

In The Loop

46

Sugar

91

Cold Lunch

80

Is There Anybody There

78

Surprise Film

101

Colour Contamination

31

69

55

J

Synedoche New York

Confessions of a Shopaholic Coraline 3D

65

Couch In New York, A

19

Cowards

55

Creative Chaos

45

19

T

Jerichow

71

Takva

Johnny Mad Dog

91

This Is Your Life

67

Just Another Love Story

69

Three Blind Mice

99

Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

K

D Daisy Chain, The

94

Delta

90

Derek

54

Desert Within, The

81

Disgrace

49

Dogging: A Love Story

62

Door, The

31

Dorothy Mills

85

66

Three Colours: Blue

45

Three Miles North of Molkom

54

Karamazovs, The

72

Today is Better than Two Tomorrows

87

Kill Daddy Goodnight

79

Tóg Mise Leat

90

L Last Chance Harvey

97

Tokyo!

78

Turn It Loose

87

Two For The Road

83

Two Lovers

71

Les Enfants du Paradis

70

Let the Right One In

94

Letter Never Sent, The

58

V

Liam Clancy Live At The Bitter End

82

Valentino

47

Dot

52

Doubt

43

M

Douglas Hide

90

Mark Of An Angel, The

83

Dry Summer

63

Were the World Mine

Marley and Me

95

Withnail and I

76

Memory

69

World is Big and Salvation Lies Around the Corner, The

70

E Eamon

66

Encounters at the End of the World

85

Everlasting Moments

63

Exterminating Angels

70

W

Mise Éire

75

My Father and Son

80

Y

My Life As A Dog

66

Yellow Bittern, The

77

My Only Sunshine

94

Yuri’s Day

46

Z

N

F Finscéal Pháidí

90

Five Minutes of Heaven

93

New Town Killers

99

Not Quite Hollywood

75

Flame & Citron

51

O

Flash Of Genius

52

O’Horten

48

Four Ages of Love

71

Of Best Intentions

31

112 • Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2009

72

Zift

Designed by Red&Grey Design / www.redandgreydesign.ie Festival event photography by Patrick Redmond.

Favourite films photography by Eoghan Kavanagh and Dan Dennison.

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