Dingle Film Festival 2007

We are happy to announce our festival dates for 2008.

The Dingle Film Festival will open on Thursday 11th September and close on Sunday the 14th September.

We are also happy to announce that a very special guest to the festival this year will be Cecilia Peck.

DFF will honour the Hollywood screen legend Gregory Peck who won an Oscar for his performance in To Kill A Mocking Bird. Peck’s connection with Dingle has been well documented, with many of his relatives living there. DFF will also welcome his daughter Cecilia Peck to give a public interview discussing her father’s roots in Dingle and his legendary career. A screening of her film In Conversation with Gregory Peck will take place at the festival. This film was produced by Cecilia Peck and directed by 2 time Oscar winning director Barbara Kopple.

Gregory Peck: A Dingle Legend I expect that every Irish-American coming to Ireland says visiting makes them feel good to be here. But I feel drawn to Dingle, I feel a sense of coming home. For me that is what it is. This is where my grandmother, Catherine Ashe, came from.

Launch 2007 Festival - Maurice Galway, Sarah Miles and Sir Alan Parker at Inch beach Thursday 6th of September launching the Dingle Film Festival.

It was slightly short of surreal to see legendary director Sir Alan Parker in a dimly lit corner of Dingle’s Phoenix Cinema. “I’ve not really got much to say, you know,” he said (sounding like Michael Caine), “but I’ve got a soft spot for Ireland and I remember making films here with great affection.” Somewhere from the back of the musty auditorium, Sarah Miles contributed perfectly enunciated heckles.

So the first Dingle Film Festival was born; delivered by two of film’s greatest names, in a part of Ireland no stranger to Hollywood.

The support for this new festival was evident with plenty of filmmakers around to introduce their films and talk about them in the pub afterwards. In the relaxed style of Dingle bohemia, venues ranged from the traditional cinema to the less traditional local church.

In addition to premiering several features (including Julie Delpy’s 2 Days in Paris and Nicholas Roeg’s Puffball), DFF ran a short film competition. Notable entries included Deep Breaths (dir: PJ Dillon, Ireland) featuring Alan Leech, with a nice build-up to the showdown and dark twist in a jilted lover’s perspective. The crew and cast of The Blaxorcist (dir: Edward King, Ireland) clearly enjoyed their entertaining take on the exorcism of a bedridden girl possessed by soul. It’s hard not to make a good film from a Roddy Doyle story, and New Boy (dir: Steph Green, Ireland), about an African boy’s first day at school in Ireland got Sir Alan Parker’s vote for best short and praise for the great performances of its child actors. The creepy L’Ecouteur/The Listener (dir: Kester Dyer, USA) was memorable for building up its main character as lonely and vulnerable, only to reveal his base motivations in an uncomfortable climax. Siren (dir: Andras Novak, Hungary) should be commended for its moving recreation of 1956 Budapest during the revolution. The tagline “They weren’t chicks, they were dudes” made compelling viewing for the highly entertaining documentary My Day in (Fake TV) Court (dir: Scott Calonico, USA), following the director’s successful attempt to fool a US court TV show with the premise that strippers hired for a stag night came with extra attachments; “He didn’t specify the gender,” was the defence.

Organisers Maurice Galway and Tom Hogan took a chance with their remote west coast location, but they’ve shown what can be achieved through faith and vision. For a new festival, Dingle held its weight with a strong programme and exceptional special guests. To quote Sir Alan Parker back at the Phoenix cinema: “It’s not always about the big carpet at Cannes”. His presence certainly reflected that, as well as the DFF’s unique ability to create something special from scratch.

Film Ireland 119 issue by Rebecca Kemp www.filmireland.net

Click here to listen to Sarah Miles interview on Radio Kerry

Picture this, Sir Alan Parker on Inch Strand smiling as Sarah Miles cavorts about with her parasol, reliving a cinematic moment. Cut to, the intimate setting of St.James Church and Ned Dowd’s workshop discussing production logistics on ‘Apocalypto’ and ‘Last of The Mohicans’. New scene, Colin Vaines, Excutive Vice-President, European Development and Production, Miramax, being ferried to The Blaskets astounded by scores of Dolphins, reminiscent of The Blue Planet, on this the finest weather weekend of the entire summer. These are just some of the memorable scenes from The inaugural Dingle Film Festival 2007.

I am relaxing with a pint in the Skellings and delighting in hearing reflections from Alan Parker who launched the festival, liberally sharing his anecdotes from various movies. Phonenix proprietor Michael O’Sullivan sets the mood as he discusses having shown all Alan’s movies at The Phoenix and now has the pleasure of introducing the man himself to a packed house, awaiting the premiere of ‘Two Days in Paris’ Juile Deply’s Romantic Comedy. Sarah Miles heckles from the audience to much amusement. Later Sarah dances up a storm in John Benny’s bar to some hair raising Irish traditional tunes. The following night she regaled a large audience during a panel discussion at Ionad an Bhlascaoid Mhoir on the makings of Ryan’s Daughter.

Workshops are a prime focus of the festival, one of these, Owen McPolin and Brian Nolan’s superb two hour feast in aspects of Digtal Cinema. I recall Owen describing technical details involved with illustrations from ‘Eden’ a movie which is currently in post production, and Brian’s lecture on the specifics and tools necessary to the process of Digital Film Making. Senator Eoghan Harris delivered a workshop on the ‘Three Principles of Plot’ which went two hours over time and was a talking point that evening outside a bustling Currans bar.

An example of the diversity of film making and film makers can be highlighted by recalling one screening where I welcomed, Charlie Chu and Janet Harvey who had flown in from Los Angeles; Scott Calonico over from Austin Texas, and Donal O’Keeffe, Paddy Cahill and Jessica Fuller, all young Irish Film makers. The four day Festival went off exceptionally well and generated a hive of interest and activity throughout Dingle Town over a scorcher of a weekend. We managed to attract attention and coverage from all the National Papers, garnering full page spreads.

Alan alerting us to the domain of middle budget films being of the most interest in the industry and yet often times the hardest to have financed, in his interview with Pat Kenny on Radio One, brought to my mind the consideration of our festival being a middle budget Film Festival, and also where a lot of the most interesting encounters occur.

Within some pretty serious financial parameters we managed to screen several feature premieres, Rolf De Heer’s ‘Ten Canoes’, Andrew Piddington’s ‘The Killing of John Lennon’, not opening to the Irish cinema public until the 8th of Decmeber; Nicolas Roeg’s latest film shot in Ireland ‘Puffball’ the producer of which, Julie Baines was also present, and ‘The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey’ which was introduced by the director Bill Clark and its co-producer Ros Hubbard to a thrilled family audience. This was followed by an opportunity to meet the director over tea and ice cream in Benner’s hotel.

By the time Colin Vaines announces the winners at the awards ceremony on the Sunday night it was apparent to all that the first Dingle Film Festival has all the potential of a major calander event within the international film festival circuit.