The three enthusiasts behind the Mid-Ulster Film Festival tell Susan McKaywhy the 'family and friends sort of festival' is so popular even if it's not strictly necessary
IT WAS KEVIN MCALEER, the great, laconic comedian from the back hills of Omagh, who, in 2005, was sent out by his friends and colleagues to publicise the new Mid-Ulster Film Festival. McAleer was sitting happily in the BBC studio when the reporter got provocative, pointing out that there were already film festivals in Derry and Belfast.
"Does Northern Ireland really need another one?" he asked.
McAleer was thrown. "My wife, Valerie, had just made a cake for the opening night, and it was such a natural, local thing that we were doing," he says. "I was just tongue-tied."
The festival director, Mary Mullin, looks at him with a delicately raised eyebrow.
"Well, I heard that interview," she says. "What you actually replied was: 'No, definitely not.' "
McAleer admits that this is correct. "I didn't say: 'Well, all of our workshops are sold out and Yabo Yablonsky is coming,' " he says.
He could have, but these people refuse to cast their pearls before swine. And the great US writer and director did come, and sat up half the night in the small, lovely bar in An Creagán, where the festival is held, eating Valerie's cake and talking about film.
"He said it was all about making things, and the love of making them," McAleer says. "He said: 'Don't worry about becoming famous or losing your integrity - that'll come naturally.' "
Yablonsky, probably best known for writing Escape to Victory, directed by John Huston, had such a good time at the festival that he and his wife moved to Derry. (Sadly, he died there, of cancer.) He is one of many well-known figures who have made their way to the middle of the bog between Omagh and Cookstown in Co Tyrone to the conference centre, restaurant and holiday cottages at An Creagán.
Hidden away among the pine trees at the foot of the Sperrin Mountains, this is a magical, remote place, perfect for long, rambling walks and conversations.
The festival, now in its fifth year, isn't about celebrity and it isn't competitive.
"It is the sort of event where a kid from Omagh who wants to make a film can have breakfast with a Hollywood director," says Mullin.
Her colleague, Roisin Nevin, nods enthusiastically. "It is for people who love film. It is a celebration of film," she says.
"It is a bullshit-free zone," says McAleer. "People who are into image and ego wouldn't touch this with a bargepole. People come here because they sense the spirit of it. They are drawn here to meet all sorts of people they never heard of before."
This year's festival runs from May 2nd to 4th and, for an area that usually attracts a rather middle-of-the-road sort of entertainment, has an impressively eclectic programme. There are features, documentaries, films for children, shorts and workshops. The festival begins with a gala event in fancy dress, compered by McAleer and featuring brilliant performers such as the Italian pianist, Alberto Gariglio, and jazz guitarist Keith McDermott.
The opening film is La Vie En Rose, featuring Marion Cotillard's searing performance as singer Edith Piaf, which won her an Oscar. The closing film is She Should Have Gone to the Moon, a documentary about the feisty 79-year-old Texan, Jerry Truhill, who, along with 12 other women, trained in the 1960s as a Nasa astronaut, only to be dropped from the US space programme on the express orders of the president, Lyndon B Johnson, who considered it an unsuitable profession for ladies.
In between, features include British romance Donovan Slacks, Argentinian comedy Fraternally, US thriller Road to Empire and Northern Irish drama Stay With Me, devised and performed by young people from Belfast. Documentaries range from Cullybackey man Harry Cook's Operation Shamrock, about a proposed but abandoned German invasion of Ireland via Portstewart Strand during the second World War, to Woman, about the Syrian government minister, Bouthaina Shaaban.
There is a seminar about working as a cameraman in war zones, with Colin Peck from Derry, who has filmed wars in, among other places, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia and Iraq. There is a pitching event for prospective film-makers and a workshop on scriptwriting by the Co Tyrone man and Horslip, Barry Devlin.
DEVLIN IS ONE of the stalwarts of the festival, and has been involved since it began in 2004, soon after Mullin met Nevin at a film-making course in Dublin. Mullin is setting up a heating company in Co Tyrone, while Nevin is a nurse who is currently setting up a film production company. Mullin's husband, Hugh, is also involved in the festival. Geoffrey Sproule, the technical co-ordinator, is from Castlederg. They are all passionate about film. There is support from the local council, but funding is minuscule.
"It is very much a family and friends sort of festival," Mullin says. "This year, we have the cult kung fu film-maker, Don Wilson, coming. He's a friend of a friend from Omagh. Last year we had Mary Pat Kelly, who is married to a man from Carrickmore, up the road from here. She made a film called Proud, which was about the only US battleship that didn't get a commendation in the second World War. All of the crew were black. The ship had called in to Derry. One of the original crew came and spoke at the festival.
"The first year, I was getting frantic with anxiety and Kevin said to me: 'Look, if only three people come, and they sit here and enjoy the films, it will have been a success.' "
It was also McAleer who pointed out that the festival's acronym, Muff, might be open to misinterpretation. "I've been around, I'm a man of the world," he says, deadpan.
Mullin needn't have worried. Hundreds came, and numbers have grown steadily each year since then. Jerry Truhill, star of She Should Have Gone to the Moon, had Irish grandparents and was determined to come to An Creagán this year, but her doctor has ruled it out.
"I had open heart surgery three months ago," she tells me on the phone. "He said I might die if I travelled that far. I said: 'Well, I could die in worse places than Ireland.' "
She is proud of the film. "We were known as the Mercury 13. There are 10 of us still alive and kicking," she says. "We were trained to go to the moon. We were lighter, smarter and cuter, and we proved we could do the job better than the men. But oh boy, were we stepping on some giant egos. Those men threw a wall-eyed fit. Yes ma'am." She laughs. "After that, we started fighting for equal rights for women. All the old guys are out of there now, and there are some great women in there."
BOUTHAINA SHABAAN, meanwhile, hopes to attend the festival, but fears that the situation in her country, Syria, may prevent her.
"Condoleezza Rice is practically living in our region now, and with every trip she makes our life worse," she says, on a bad line from Damascus. "I have never been to Ireland, but Syrian people identify with Irish people because of our struggle for independence. I think the festival will be important for a dialogue between east and west. I have lived in London and in the US, and I know there is a lot of propaganda in the media about women and Islam. I am a proud Arab woman."
The festival is effortlessly cross-community and naturally multicultural. Mullin lists some of its local supporters. "There's our compere, Jack Daniel Slattery from Limerick, Brian from Cork, Zebkhan from Afghanistan, Syed from Bangladesh, Helcom from the Philippines, Dannio from Sicily, Bill from Greece . . ."
She pauses. "And Kevin from Drumnakilly," adds McAleer, the man who once agreed that there was no need whatsoever for any of this to happen.
Details: www.midulsterfilmfestival.com
