The Lighthouse Cinema in Smithfield will be hosting the Dublin Feminist Film Festival again, from the 22nd to the 24th of August 2019.
For years the Feminist Film Festival has been a highlight in Dublin’s festival circuit, showcasing top female talent from around the world both on-screen and behind the camera, providing a platform for female filmmaking, opening conversations between female creative talents and displaying a commitment to inclusive art that is reflected in the programme each year, which provides a range of work, from documentary to drama, short form to feature, films from different places and representing different perspectives, as well as work by women-of-colour.
The theme of DFFF 2019 will highlight Irish Female Filmmakers. The festival this year will display the work done by Irish women in filmmaking, despite the cultural and institutional barriers that still exist in production, distribution and other challenges. As the festival themselves say, these are films that deserve to be seen, talked about, and seen again!
Despite a high-profile and highly active push to increase the number of films directed by women here, the number continues to hover around 20% in any given year. We have a relatively young national cinema, and, as our timeline shows, women’s participation in the industry has developed in fits in starts. But even with growing vocal demands for inclusion and a national film board dedicated to promoting female filmmakers, 20% is far too low a number, and Film In Dublin agrees.
With shorts, animation and features packed into the programme, the 2019 Festival will celebrate some of Ireland’s best cinematic talents, including Kirsten Sheridan, Aoife McArdle, Oonagh Kearney, Louise Bagnall, Laura McGann and more. Ever mindful of the history of women in film even as it looks to the future, DFFF 2019 have been celebrating former talents too in the run up to yesterday’s programme announcement, providing a timeline of women in Irish film.
Tickets for this year’s festival are available now. Check out the full programme for the Dublin Feminist Film Festival 2019 below:
Thursday 22nd August
6pm – Eamon , Dir. Margaret Corkery, 2009 (1h26m)
In this dark comedy, a family holiday brings to a head the destructive love triangle between Eamon (Robert Donnelly), a little boy with behavioural problems, his distracted mother Grace (Amy Kirwan), and his sexually frustrated father (Darren Healy).
7.45pm – Shorts Programme and Award Ceremony
Including several Irish shorts, DFFF2019 once again presents a selection of short films directed by women from around the world.
9.15pm – Disco Pigs, Dir. Kirsten Sheridan, 2001 (1hr34m)
Pig (Cillian Murphy) and Runt (Elaine Cassidy) want to live in an insular world where they make their own rules and have their own language. But, days before their shared 17th birthday, the balance of their world begins to shift and threaten their private universe.
Friday 23rd August
6pm – Dance Double Bill followed by Filmmakers Panel Discussion:
Five Letters To The Stranger Who Will Dissect My Brain, Writer and Director Oonagh Kearney, 2018 (25m)
We Are Moving: Memories of Miss Moriarty, Director Claire Dix, 2016 (65m)
Based on a poem by Doireann Ní Ghríofa, Five Letters To The Stranger Who Will Dissect My Brain is an experimental dance narrative film. Tracing the impact of an encounter with a cadaver on Viv (Venetia Bowe), a first year medical student, this innovative short uses movement and choreography to explore the power of the human body in life and in death.
We Are Moving: Memories of Miss Moriarty meanwhile is an intimate portrait of Joan Denise Moriarty. From the 1940s until her death in 1992, Moriarty fought to bring ballet to all corners of Ireland and initiated generations of Irish women and men into the world of ballet.
These screenings will be followed by a panel discussion with filmmakers Oonagh Kearney, Claire Dix, Cara Holmes and Roisín Geraghty, chaired by Vanessa Gildea (Women in Film and Television Ireland).
10.45pm – Kissing Candice, Dir. Aoife McArdle, 2017 (1hr48m)
Blending surreal ambiguity with biting social realism, Kissing Candice follows its titular protagonist, an epileptic teen who struggles with feelings of loneliness and isolation. When a handsome stranger aids her during one of her seizures, Candice’s world becomes an intriguing but sometimes unsettling blend of fantasy and escapism. A mesmerising and affecting exploration of an existential post-Troubles Northern Ireland and the harms of generational neglect and toxic masculinity.
Saturday 24th August
2pm – Animation Shorts Programme
The Bird and the Whale(dir. Carol Newman, 2016), An Cailleach Bhéara(dir. Naomi Wilson, 2007), From Darkness(dir. Nora Twomey, 2002),Departure (dir. Aoífe Doyle, 2018), and Late Afternoon(dir. Louise Bagnall, 2017).
A showcase of stunning and varied animation from some of Ireland’s top talent in the field, followed by a panel discussion with the directors, chaired by Dr. Ciara Barrett.
4pm – Revolutions, Dir. Laura McGann, 2017 (87m)
Energising, unflinching and poignant, Revolutions is Laura McGann’s trenchant portrait of Ireland’s efforts to enter the first ever Roller Derby World Cup and the ensuing personal fallout. It’s a snapshot into the lives of young, ambitious people struggling to find a way through the recession in Ireland too.