Maureen ‘Mo’ O’Connell has had a busy couple of years. A director shorts, features and plays, Mo also brings up the work of others, as head of the Dublin International Comedy Film Festival. Recent shorts by the Dublin director show her range, with Haven, Hum and Bruise all stirring different emotions with powerful visuals. Haven is…
The latest volume of the animated anthology series Star Wars Visions is available now on Disney+, providing a collection of animated episodes from studios all over the world. Ireland’s own Cartoon Saloon contributed to the new batch released on May the 4th, with studio co-founder Paul Young directing the episode ‘Screecher’s Reach’, an eery and…
Released earlier this year, Mildly Different is a short film made by, starring, and about autistic individuals. Written and directed by Anna Czarska and starring IFTA nominated Irish actress Jordanne Jones (Metal Heart, You Are Not My Mother) alongside Ruby Connolly and Lára McIvor, the film follows a young woman on the autism spectrum from…
Cocaine Bear is a film title that can’t help but capture your attention. Inspired by a real story of a black bear that overdosed on a bag of cocaine dropped by smugglers in 1985, the movie is directed by Elizabeth Banks and will feature performances by Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Alden Ehrenreich and more,…
A powerful examination of the experiences of people who are living with HIV in Ireland today, How to Tell A Secret is a hybrid documentary film that looks at social stigma and the art of telling your story. The highly anticipated film will open on limited release in select Irish cinemas from Thursday 1st December, coinciding with World AIDS Day 2022. Robbie Lawlor…
In 2018, director Natasha Waugh and writer Jonathan Hughes worked together on short film Mother, an offbeat, darkly funny tale of a matriarchal kitchen appliance. Their latest film, La Tumba is similarly smart, taking what seems like a pure comedy premise and delivering a sincere, emotional story. Featuring lovely performances by the leads, Eloisa Etxebarria…
As part of the Cartoon Saloon dynasty, Nora Twomey has been one of the leading lights in animation over the past decade. Her last film The Breadwinner was a beautiful exploration of a young girl’s life growing up under the Taliban in Afghanistan, an Academy Award nominee that continued the Kilkenny animation studio’s stellar reputation.…
The School for Good and Evil is coming to Netflix. Directed by Paul Feig and based on a New York Bestselling series, the film deals with good, evil and everything in between. Graham Day sat down and chatted with the director, to find out about all the good and bad elements that brought Feig to…
Dónal Foreman takes an unconventional approach to telling Irish stories. In his acclaimed doc The Image You Missed, Foreman cracks into the archives of his father’s own documenting of The Troubles, resulting in a deeply intimate encounter. In Out of Here, he improvised with young Irish actors for whom the film’s exploration of recession-hit Dublin hit hard…
This July saw the Irish film industry come together in the summer sun out west, for the return in person of the Galway Film Fleadh. Always a big opportunity for rising Irish talents on and off screen, this year was no different, and one of the big winners was Laura O’Shea, director of the short…
