Blind Man's Eye, an animated Irish short from Matthew Talbot-Kelly, has been selected for the upcoming Venice Film Festival. Talbot-Kelly, who has worked as a senior compositor and digital supervisor on a number of big-budget productions, was delighted by the news.
"Being accepted to Venice is a huge endorsement of our efforts and intentions," he said. The 64th Venice Film Festival runs from August 29th to September 8th.
It was also announced recently that WC, the latest feature from that tenacious guerrilla film- maker Liam O'Mochain, is to be featured in the Montreal World Film festival, which runs from August 23rd to September 3rd.
King of the Fleadh
Tom Collins's Kings, an Irish- language feature focusing on the trials of five middle-aged immigrants in north London, was one of the undoubted hits of the recent Galway Film Fleadh. The picture, adapted from Jimmy Murphy's play The Kings of the Kilburn High Road, is now set to receive a deserved theatrical release on September 21st.
Edinburgh fest moves to June
From next year, visitors to the Edinburgh Film Festival will no longer have to share accommodation with Swedish transsexual mime artists and their trained monkeys. Since its inception in 1947, the event has run alongside the Edinburgh Arts Festival and has, thus, offered guests and audience members the opportunity to sample the delights of that cultural shindig in between screenings. "The move to June makes artistic and commercial sense," said Hannah McGill, artistic director of the festival. "Logistically, a June event is better placed in the ever- crowded international film festival calendar."
It is true that the move puts distance between Edinburgh and the Venice and Toronto festivals, but it positions it significantly closer to the behemoth that is Cannes. Besides which, the dancing bears in Guantanamo jumpsuits always jollied up the atmosphere somewhat. We'll see.
Just a dandy lion
The Gay Lion is soon to be with us. No, no, this is not some homophobic crack at the expense of the most cowardly character in The Wizard of Oz. The good people at the Venice Film Festival have announced the inception of an award specifically honouring films that represent aspects of gay culture.
The Gay Lion, whose wings will be painted in colours of the rainbow, sounds like a desirable item, but here at Reel News we still prefer the award that Berlin bestows on its favourite queer film. Whereas the overall winner receives a Golden Bear, the best picture with gay connections gets a Teddy. Awww!
He's no chip off the old Rock
Oh, to be an upmarket paternity- test specialist. Shortly after Eddie Murphy grudgingly owned up to having sired Mel B's forthcoming release, Chris Rock, the least annoying of the older comic's disciples, announced - somewhat too triumphantly for our liking - that he was not the father of a 13-year-old boy whose mother had recently been clawing at his chequebook.
Kali Bowyer, a resident of Savannah, Georgia, did not accept the result of the DNA test. "I am sick and tired of being made out to be a liar and a fraud," she said.
Carney to remake his own TV pilot
Reel Newscan exclusively reveal that John Carney, director of the acclaimed Once, is about to get stuck into his next project. For some years internet speculation has buzzed around a strange extraterrestrial entity called Zonad, co-directed and co-written by Carney, his brother Kieron and Tom Hall. The 2003 Irish film, snatches of which have appeared on YouTube, stars Cillian Murphy as a callow youth and Simon Delaney as an alien - or is he? - with an insatiable taste for fried breakfasts. Made as a pilot for a TV series that never happened, the no-budget picture has since been lost in the vaults.
A new version of the script, written by John and Kieran, is due to start shooting in and around Dublin in early September. Delaney will reprise the title role opposite Rory Keenan in the Murphy part.
Ed Guiney, one of the film's producers, raves about the script, but is eager to stress that the picture is being made on a shoestring. "The script has been completely rewritten and it's a real gem," he says. "Though it's completely ridiculous."
Once Zonad is in the can, John Carney heads for the US to direct the comedy Town House for Fox 2000 Films.
