Time to prick up your ears and get ready to rock with The New Music – a foot-stomping Irish musical-drama with a big heart and a punk ethos – that has been making waves at festivals, winning the ‘Spirit of IndieCork’ Award for 2019. This heartwarming feature is now set for its full Irish and UK release on digital streaming services from 18 January 2021 courtesy of 101 Films
The current climate is one with a lot of uncertainty for us all, but it poses particular challenges for independent filmmakers. The already considerable difficulties of producing a film without grants or studio assistance takes on a whole new dimension when it comes to the new ground of actually getting your film released during increasingly long “strange times”.
One such film striving to get in front of audiences at this time if Irish indie feature Be Good or Be Gone. An entirely self-financed film from pre-production to post, this Dublin-set story is currently aiming for a theatrical release, and is set to screen soon for an Irish premiere at the Dublin Underground Film Festival.
The Firehouse Film Contest is a monthly short film festival held in A4 Sounds on Dorset Street, showcasing the very latest efforts from Irish filmmakers, hot off the press. We’ve got the November results and a chat with one of the winners at this month’s screenings, which took place on November 4th.
Coming soon to the Light House Cinema is Dublin’s latest film festival. The Dublin film fan’s calendar is always bursting with film festivals, especially at this time of year. Even this week, the Peter McVerry Trust are hosting a festival of their own at the Smithfield cinema, with the Opening Doors Film Festival well underway, screening films like The Florida Project and Paddy Breathnach’s soon-upcoming Rosie, an important effort from Ireland’s first ‘homeless film festival’ to engage cinema audiences on the issue of homelessness and stir debate and conversations on its impact on our society. Also this week you can check in on the future of Irish film through ‘SEA CHANGE – IADT@21’, a screening of the Best of IADT’s Film Graduate shorts taking place this Thursday 11th October, 6pm at The Studio in dlr LexIcon.
Looking ahead to November though and back, as ever, to the Light House, the Dublin Independent Film Festival will be the latest showcase of a range of Irish talents, taking place on Thursday, 1st November. This festival is organised for both independent filmmakers and cinema-goers who love to discover niche films and artists.
Director: Luc Besson Starring: Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, Clive Owen, Ethan Hawke, Rihanna, John Goodman Running Time: 137 mins
There’s a great chase sequence near the beginning of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets in which the characters exist simultaneously in two alternate dimensions. One a colorful, expansive and beautiful looking desert world filled with wide-eyed consumers; the other an over-packed, messy and dangerous market planet, where the possibility of adventure (or disaster) lies around every corner. Much like this inter-dimensional marketplace, the film seems to exist in two separate states at once. And, much like the characters, viewers will likely find themselves torn between the two. Valerian is awful. But it’s also kind of amazing. And damn if it’s not great to look at!Read more…
The summer season may not be delivering much thus far in terms of the big blockbusters, but thankfully as ever, anyone interested in supporting Irish cinema has plenty of options. Today sees the release of Darndale crime movie Cardboard Gangsters, but next week will deliver independent Irish cinema too, in the form of Twice Shy, a romantic drama by director Tom Ryan that has had success on the film festival circuit, including a screening at the Galway Film Fleadh, and a showing at the Irish Film Festival Australia that bagged Ryan an award for Best Young Director. Twice Shy tells the story of two young people falling in love, taking them from the debs in Tipperary to life attending college in the big smoke, interspersed with a car journey with a very important destination for them. Film In Dublin spoke to Tom Ryan about directing the film and the challenges of balancing its love story with more serious topics.
