Six years ago, conceived after Mick Hannigan and Una Feely’s controversial separation from the Cork Film Festival, IndieCork gave the Irish film community something it wasn’t aware it needed: an event focused on independent film with a bit of music thrown in. The bash now has an immovable position in the nation’s film calendar.
The team are aware that any such event needs to bend itself to the zeitgeist. With that in mind, IndieCork 2018 is introducing a new award for best emerging female director. It seems as if this is the first such gong in the country. Among the films by women, we find Laura Bispuri's beautifully performed, elegantly shot Daughter of Mine. A hit at this year's Berlin Film Festival, the picture concerns a young girl buffeted by family pressures in sun-bleached Sardinia.
Fans of Rebecca Daly, an alumna of Sundance and Cannes, will rush to a screening of the Irish director's Good Favour. Focusing on a damaged teenager who blunders into a devout Christian community, the picture follows up Daly's Mammal from an unexpected direction. The director will be in Cork to introduce the film.
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Also premiering in Berlin this year, Emily Atef's 3 Days in Quiberon attempts a dramatised study of Romy Schneider, one of France's great acting icons, as she undergoes an interview in the early 1980s. Featuring a standout turn from Marie Bäumer as Schneider, the picture has surprising things to say about the pressures of fame.
Andrea Bussmann's Faust, recipient of a special mention at the Locarno Film Festival, draws something fresh from one of literature's most durable warnings. Set on the Oaxacan coast of Mexico, the picture winds characters from legend in with everyday inhabitants to unsettling and unusual effect.
Keep an eye open for Charles Williams's <em>All These Creatures</em>, winner of the short film Palme d'Or at Cannes
IndieCork gives punters the chance to see a few recent releases that haven't made it out of the capital. Annemarie Jacir's Wajib is hugely recommended. The Palestinian director bases her witty drama around an awkward young man as, home for his sister's wedding, he drives around Nazareth delivering invitations with his dad. Open-hearted and inclusive, the film addresses both the bitter compromises and the stubborn ordinariness of life as a Palestinian Christian in contemporary Israel.
IndieCork will also be screening several busy programmes of short films. Keep an eye open for Charles Williams's All These Creatures, winner of the short film Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Festival, in the World Shorts section. The Australian film digs through awkward memories of a mysterious infestation. "It's a short film about someone looking back at their early adolescence and trying to understand what was going on with their father," Williams has said. "Whether he was someone who was a sick person or a bad person, and trying to pull apart these memories he has, that led to this tragedy."
Since the inception of IndieCork, the organisers have worked musical events in with the busy cinema programme. Among the highlights this year is a performance by the innovative hip-hop artist Ophelia. Before her set, you can catch a study of New Jersey and Bronx-based hip-hop innovator Vianey Otero, who also performs as So Icey Trap. The Icelandic experimental musician Áki Ásgeirsson will be performing a solo gig. TANK, a musical collective who see themselves as “soundscape gardeners”, will be offering soundtracks to experimental silent films of the 1930s.
There’s more where that came from, including new experimental cinema from guest director Johann Lurf, and an opportunity to quiz festival programmers from around the globe.
All of this happens around a small selection of venues that allows intimacy to coexist with scope. Just dive in.
IndieCork runs from Sunday October 7th to Sunday October 14th
