John Ford festival to honour director

A four-day celebration of the life and works of the Irish-American film director John Ford will be held in Dublin next month

A four-day celebration of the life and works of the Irish-American film director John Ford will be held in Dublin next month. The inaugural John Ford Ireland Film Symposium takes place from June 7th to 10th.

The opening night will feature a gala screening of Ford’s silent epic The Iron Horse at the National Concert Hall with music accompaniment from the RTÉ Concert Orchestra. There will be a talk by the well-known film director Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show) who knew Ford and who made the documentary Directed by John Ford.

The keynote address will be by film historian Joseph McBride, biographer of Ford, Steven Spielberg and Orson Welles among others. The 60th anniversary screening of The Quiet Man will feature Ford’s grandson Dan Ford and actor Maureen O’Hara, who starred in that film opposite John Wayne.

The symposium is an initiative of the Irish Film and Television Academy, the John Ford Estate in the US and the Department of Arts.

Ronan McGreevy

Ronan McGreevy

Ronan McGreevy is a news reporter with The Irish Times