THE IRISH film community turned out in force for the launch of the programme for the ninth Jameson Dublin International Film Festival last night.
Maura Tierney, the American actress best known for her appearances in ER, and Charlene McKenna, Irish star of the RTÉ series Rawand Pure Mule,were on hand at Tripod, a busy Dublin night spot, to talk up a characteristically impressive line-up of premieres, special events and celebrity appearances.
The 2011 event, which runs from February 17th until February 27th, will present 130 films and is to welcome such guests as Martin Sheen, Emilio Estevez and Harry Shearer. Gráinne Humphreys, festival director since 2008, was effusive about this year’s groaning line-up.
“I’m incredibly honoured to unveil this year’s film festival programme,” she said. “It’s a world-class line-up, with premieres of the best of international cinema, seasons of new work from Romania and Latin America, a fantastic line-up of new Irish cinema, some classic films back on the big screen and a very special line-up of guests.”
The opening film is to be Submarine,the already highly acclaimed feature debut from comic actor Richard Ayoade.
Ayoade, best known as the geeky Moss in sitcom The IT Crowd,is expected to attend the Irish premiere of his coming-of-age drama.
The closing film will be François Ozon's Potiche, a comedy starring two of the great figures in French cinema: Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu.
Each year, the festival has examined cinema from a particular country. In 2011, the event focuses on the increasingly fecund Romanian film industry.
One conspicuous highlight is the extraordinary documentary The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu,which employs state TV footage and propaganda film to offer an ironic portrait of the late dictator.
Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez, the West Wingstar's son, will be in town to present Estevez's The Way. The picture stars Sheen as a father who, following the death of his son, finds himself on an unlikely pilgrimage in a remote section of the Pyrenees.
Though the festival has always prided itself on drawing international stars to the capital, the organisers have also made sure to focus on the most exciting and innovative upcoming domestic features. Much attention will focus on Juanita Wilson, whose As If I'm Not Therehas already attracted much buzz at festivals. Wilson was recently named as a "director to watch in 2011" by Varietymagazine.
Other Irish features include Shimmy Marcus's Good Cake Bad Cake, a documentary on the band LiR, and David Keating's Wake Wood,a horror picture from legendary, recently-reconstituted Hammer Films.
One question will trouble fans of shock cinema. The festival is to screen William Castle's vintage exploitation film The Tingler. The original release employed a technique called Percepto that induced mild electric shocks in the spines of cinemagoers. Modern health and safety regulations will, surely, not permit such recklessness.
The Jameson Dublin International Film Festival runs from February 17th until February 27th.
