Joyce fans rejoice. Ireland’s most literary film festival returns to the fair city of film next week. The festival aims to encourage artistic innovation within the medium, artists who do things their own way, and films that seek to push the craft forward, as Joyce did so greatly within his own craft of literature. They’ll be celebrating some classics and new offerings similar to the Bloom-ouevre.
The Bloomsday Film Festival have announced their programme of events from Wednesday 12th to Sunday 16th June. The plans include a a special 20th anniversary screening of Lenny Abrahamson’s Adam & Paul. The film festival which is run in partnership with the Bloomsday Festival and the James Joyce Centre, offers a unique festival experience blending film and literature in celebration of James Joyce’s relationship with cinema and the city of Dublin.
Triestine filmmaker Martin Turk visits the IFI on the 15th to present his side of the story about Ireland’s first cinema theatre, in his documentary Kino Volta. For Irish cineastes and literary enthusiasts, the fun fact of Joyce’s brief role as manager of the Volta Cinema at 45 Mary Street is well known, but less is known about his Triestine partners In this creative documentary Martin Turk, explores cinema history and creates a tribute to his hometown Trieste, which was so beloved of Nora, James and various other Joyces. The screening will be followed by Q&A with Italian-Slovenian director Martin Turk and Irish producer Jeremiah Cullinane.
In partnership with the IFI, the festival will present a 20th Anniversary screening of Lenny Abrahamson’s first feature Adam & Paul on 16th June. This will be preceded by Kelly Campbells’s short film An Encounter, an adaptation by Mark O’Halloran of the short story from Joyce’s Dubliners. Mark O’Halloran will introduce the films and explore the Joycean connections.
Also that day, Alice in Wonderland is given nightmarish treatment in experimental film The Disembodiment of Alice. The dark adult fairytale, directed by Cléa Elisa van der Grijn is a surreal and hallucinatory reimagining of Lewis Carroll’s Alice. The film’s protagonist journeys through a warren of bewildering scenarios where she encounters characters who are at once beguiling and alienating uttering passages from Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. Both films screen will be followed by a Q&A with filmmakers.
The opulent surroundings of the James Joyce Centre will play host to an eclectic array of short films that range from short stories about Dublin to films with a Joycean, literary, poetic and experimental theme. Urban beekeepers, boxing clubs and the Smithfield Market feature in documentary shorts and Colm Meaney provides the voice of George Bernard Shaw in a madcap puppet film which portrays a spat between Shaw and Shakespeare. Lalor Roddy pops up as Ezra Pound , there is a special focus on Lucia Joyce and collaborations with the Contemporary Music Centre and the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation.
The festival events will conclude with an Award Ceremony at the IFI, featuring music from Irish singer-songwriter David Keenan.
More information and tickets are available now for the festival HERE.
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