THERE are eight days to go to the 100th anniversary of the first film screenings in Ireland and the Irish Film Centre is planning the party of the century to celebrate the centenary tomorrow week with an evening incorporating performance music hall, cinema and a cyber party as revellers are transported from the Edwardian music hall to the moving image of the future.

The party will begin at 9pm with performance art involving Noeleen Kavanagh and her troupe of stilt walkers, trumpeters and puppeteers, and a champagne reception in the IFC foyer. Guests will then enter the cinema and be transported back to 1896 with a music hall extravaganza put together by Mary Louise Donnelly and a host of luminaries of the Irish stage accompanied by classic short films of the silent era.

On leaving the cinema, patrons will be astonished, we are promised, by full scale Cybernia with five screens of moving images along with performance artists with specially designed costumes and acts evoking the future of the moving image. Birthday greetings have been requested from all over the world and can be sent to e-mail cybernia iol.ie and will be broadcast at the event. And there will be music, food and a full bar.

Tickets are £25 each for the full evening and £15 for Cybernia and midnight supper. For further information, call the IFC on (01) 679-3477.