With a slew of new Irish and international movies, an impressive line-up of visiting actors and film-makers, and a tribute programme to Donal McCann, the 10th Galway Film Fleadh is shaping up as the event's most attractive programme to date. The opening film on Tuesday, July 7th, has yet to be confirmed, while the closing film on Sunday, July 12th, will be the European premiere of Paul Quinn's This Is My Father.
Paul Quinn, who wrote and directed the film, will be in Galway for the screening, along with his brothers, Aidan, who stars in it, Declan, its cinematographer, and their sister, Marian, who has an acting role in it. This family affair deals with an American high school teacher (played by James Caan) who is drawn to Ireland to uncover his father's identity.
Much of the film is formed in flashbacks to 1930s Ireland as a young couple try to maintain their love affair in the face of strong opposition from society and the local clergy. The film also features John Cusack, Colm Meaney, Stephen Rea, Jacob Tierney, Gina Moxley and newcomer Moya Farrelly. The closing day will also feature a public interview conducted by Gerry Stembridge with the great Irish actor, Donal McCann, who is the subject of this year's fleadh tribute retrospective. Five of his films will be screened during the week - The Dead, December Bride, The Bishop's Story, Stealing Beauty and The Nephew, Eugene Brady's thriller which co-stars Pierce Brosnan and goes on Irish release early in the autumn.
In addition to The Nephew and This Is My Father, the other new Irish films at the fleadh will include three world premieres, two of them from Northern Ireland - Roger Michell's Titanic Town, set in Belfast in 1972 with Julie Walters as a housewife initiating a peace movement; and Colm Villa's Sunset Heights, set in a future Derry where law and order is maintained by rival uniformed punishment squads, with Toby Stephens as a young man who has managed to remain uninvolved - until his son is murdered during a wave of child killings in the city.
The third world premiere is a special children's screening of Galway-based director Brian Kelly's first feature, A Very Unlucky Leprechaun, produced by Roger Corman's Concorde Anois studio in Connemara.
Two New York-based Irish directors will travel to Galway with their films. Terry George, who made his debut with Some Mother's Son, will introduce his Vietnam war drama, A Bright Shining Lie, based on Neil Sheehan's book and starring Bill Paxton, Amy Madigan, Vivian Wu and Eric Bogosian; and Dubliner Jimmy Smallhorne will be present for the European premiere of 2by4, his raw and controversial picture of Irish emigrants in New York which won the cinematography prize for the afore-mentioned Declan Quinn at Sundance this year.
New international features will include Ted Demme's drama, Monument Avenue, which is set among the Irish/American community in Boston and features Denis Leary with Irish actors Colm Meaney and Jason Barry; Jez Butterworth's film of his play, Mojo, set in London's gangland in 1958 and featuring Irish actor Aidan Gillen with Ian Hart, Ewan Bremner and Harold Pinter; and from Austria, Kurt Palm's screen adaptation of Flann O'Brien's At-Swim-Two-Birds.
Peter Mullen, who was voted best actor at Cannes last month, will be in Galway for the screening of Orphans, which marks his directing debut, while the Israeli filmmaker, Yossi Sommer, will attend with his award-winning Dybuk Of The Holy Apple Field, and US director Adam Bernstein will be there with his drama, Six Days To Sun- day, featuring Norman Reedus, Deborah Harry and Isacc Hayes.
The international programme also promises Michael Haneke's Funny Games (Austria); Jafar Panahi's The Mirror (Iran), Janos Szasz's Witman Boys (Hungary), Naomi Kawese's Suzako (Japan); Fridrik Thor Fridriksson's Devil's Island (Iceland), and four films from Russia - Pavel Chukhrai's The Thief, Alexei Balabanov's Of Freaks And Men, and two directed by Aleksander Sokurov, Mother And Son and Whispering Pages. The Brazilian film-maker, Walter Salles, will be in Galway with his latest film, Central Station, which won the Golden Bear for best film at the Berlin festival in February, along with his earlier feature, Terra Estrangia, and a number of his documentaries.
Pulled from the Sundance festival in January, Nick Broomfield's Kurt And Courtney, dealing with Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, is confirmed to screen in the programme of international documentaries at Galway, while Michael Moore, who made Roger & Me, will be present for the screening of his latest film, The Big One.
Irish documentaries in Galway will include Liam McGrath's Francis Barrett - Southpaw, dealing with the young Galway boxer; Fergus Tighe's Three Brothers, dealing with Aidan, Declan and Paul Quinn; and Paddy O'Connor's The Gamble, in which a man and a woman attempt to train a champion greyhound.
Advance booking for the Galway Film Fleadh opens next Wednesday at the Town Hall Theatre, Galway. Tel: 091-569777.
