Galway Film Fleadh Review

So the films have shown, the masters have taught their masterclasses, the awards have been awarded and the rowing club has been drunk dry. Everybody returns to their real jobs with a week-long hangover from the Galway Film Fleadh.

As promised, we spent more time drinking in the rowing club than seeing films. We did catch a few though so stay tuned to our reviews section for advanced word on some upcoming films.

Peter O'Toole's public interview was fascinating and all the more impressive for his vivid recollections of tiny incidents despite his age. Some man for one man. He wasn't the only Hollywood star around. Jessica Lang gave a masterclass, Bill Pullman was skulking around town and even stopped into be part of the judging panel for The Pitching Award.

Kisses - a brave attempt to mix something of Adam & Paul with the work of Shane Meadows and Paul Fraser - picked up the award for Best Feature and the best and most profound line of the night came from its young female star Kelly O'Neill: 'I'm not saying nothing'.

There was no surprise that Anvil! The Story Of Anvil scooped the Best Documentary Award. It was one of the most talked about films of the festival and anybody who was at the screening was just blown away by it. Grown men talked about being teary eyed with admiration for the aging rockers.

The excellent DLIADT short Martin picked up best short while Barbara Deignan won the coveted Pitching Award for her story The Sunshine Group, a comedy about grieving.

We're gonna wrap ourselves up in a ball and crawl out some time next year, just in time for the 21st Galway Film Fleadh. The baby is all grown up.

Galway Film Fleadh Preview

The annual knees-up, booze-up and sometime film festival that is The Galway Film Fleadh is upon us. It starts today, but as always, only gathers pace towards the weekend. The programme is rich and diverse so hopefully some people will actually leave the bar in the Rowing Club to see some films. The Fleadh is different from a lot of festivals, mainly because Galway is so small and for the week that's in it, there's a sense of it taking over the town. While the Dublin International Film Festival is very much an audience festival, Galway, with its film fair, awards night, pitching competition and numerous masterclasses has more of an industry feel to it.

For this reason, the shorts are always a draw down in Galway since half the industry is still in the proverbial waiting room that is short filmmaking, but the main attractions are always the world premieres of the new Irish films. Check out the trailers for the stylish/stylised Anton and the low-budget love story Satellites and Meteorites, starring everyone's favourite secretary this side of Maggie Gyllenhaal, Amy Huberman (yer wan from the clinic! keep up at the back).


Aside from those two, we're looking forward to Ian Fitzgibbon's A Film With Me In It, starring a trio of stand-up comedians in Dylan Moran , Mark Doherty and David O'Doherty (Those guys are brothers! What's with Mark dropping the 'O' - Damn you Equity!). This one premiered at Edinburgh recently and generated some good buzz with a glowing review in Variety.

The hero that is Gerry Stembridge is also premiering his latest film, a thriller entitled Alarm starring Ruth Bradley, daughter of Charlotte. Stembridge will never have to apologise for anything after Scrap Saturday. Hopefully these can all be squeezed in between pints in the Rowing Club and general swanning about Galway. Just don't hold us to it if the weather is good.

Tom McCarthy At The Lighthouse Cinema

Tom McCarthy attended a screening of his new film The Visitor in the new Lighthouse Cinema in Smithfield, Dublin yesterday. McCarthy is an actor turned director whose debut film The Station Agent was a small gem that deservedly garnered critical acclaim on the festival circuit.

His sophomore film The Visitor (see trailer below) is about a lonely college professor who has effectively resigned from life until he finds 2 immigrants squatting in his apartment. The trio become unlikely friends and life lessons are learned of course but what makes this unusual for a character based indie movie is its political edge and its acute sense of anger at the treatment of asylum seekers.

McCarthy took part in a lengthy Q&A after the movie, which was chaired by Graine Humphries, head of the Dublin International Film Festival. McCarthy talked at length about his process, which seems to be rather organic, haphazard and unstructured as it turns out as well as his feelings and fears about making such a political movie. According to McCarthy, he never set out to make a 'message' movie but the political element naturally evolved from the characters so he found himself in the middle of an issue, which he now is happy to speak for.

He also spilled the beans on a number of his upcoming acting roles. He appeared to be excited about the work he has done on Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones and thinks the results should turn out well. He also treated the audience to an (almost) exclusive by announcing that he had taken on a role in Roland Emmerich's big-budget end-of-the-world blockbuster 2012. The news had been announced earlier that day but it was his first comment on it. He seemed excited about acting in his first blockbuster saying it would give him an opportunity to see all the toys he doesn't get to play with on his own movies.