One of the most recent and well-received additions to the festival calendar in the fair city of film is returning this winter and it’s getting bigger and better.
Going into its 3rd year and its 4th festival, the Dublin International Comedy Film Festival promises some much needed winter levity with a packed programme of films, industry Q&A’s, a live script comedy competition, networking events, live stand-up acts and awards. The festival will be taking place across Dublin in late November and early December.
After online events and hosting in the Generator Hostel, this year the festival will also have screenings across the way in Smithfield at the Light House Cinema. Both the Light House and the Generator will host events and screenings from the 29th November to the 2nd December.
Comedy production company Deadpan Pictures will be joining DICFF this year in judging and awarding the festival’s Best Irish Short Film of 2023.
The festival includes a unique and exciting event for ambitious comedy screenwriters, hosting a script competition. The shortlisted script must prepare a live, performed, reading with actors at the Generator venue during the dates of the festival; Friday 1st and Saturday 2nd December; in front of a live audience. Attendees and the festival judges will align to decide which writer has the best comedic chops.
Live stand up has also been a fixture of the festival, which will continue this year. Joe Rooney alongside up and coming comedians including stars Felix O’Connor, Anna Clifford, Malinda Perera, Saoirse Smith, Fergus Keane, Claire Millane, Craig Moran of Stitches Comedy, Alex J. Byrne, Jack McKenna, Betsy Speer and Stephen Robert-Walters and more will be in attendance during the festival.
Among the festival’s features is recent Irish release Dublin Crust. Written and directed by Baz Black, the film tells the story of an old punk rock band reuniting for one last gig together.
Further features come from Britain. Harvey Greenfield is Running Late invites the audience to spend a single day with the titular idiosyncratic character as he becomes overwhelmed by other people’s demands on his time. Harvey’s naivety and inability to cope in the modern world is simultaneously charming, horrifying and borderline frustrating. The Bystanders meanwhile see Pete Weir (Scott Haran) – an inconspicuous office drone – recruited precisely for his anonymity to become a Bystander, a kind of empowered guardian angel tasked with watching over, and invisibly helping, a ‘Subject’. Pete is trained by jaded Bystander Frank (Seann Walsh), who out of boredom proposes that they swap Subjects. Frank now has Sarah (Georgia Mabel Clarke), and Pete has feckless loser Luke (Andi Jashy), whom he hopes to transform in order to win Bystander of the Year and make up for losing a chess contest decades earlier.
Blocks of shorts will also screen throughout the days, while Let The Wrong One In director Conor McMahon and comedy production pro Jason Butler will be in attendance for Q&A events.
A festival pass which includes entry to all films and events is available for €30. Further tickets are on sale now and can be found HERE. The Dublin International Comedy Film Festival will launch at 9pm on the 29th November after screenings at the Lighthouse Cinema that take place at the Generator Hostel that is free to attend, with comedy acts performing.