The programme for the upcoming Dublin International Film Festival has been launched at the Light House Cinema in Dublin. More than two decades after the event relaunched, the festival is still pulling in top titles and distinguished guests. The 2024 edition, which runs from February 22nd to March 2nd, opens with Marian Quinn’s TWIG, a reimagining of Antigone set in Dublin’s gangland, and closes with Pat Collins’s already much-praised adaptation of John McGahern’s That They May Face the Rising Sun. Guests include Isabelle Huppert, Steve McQueen, Jared Harris, Kevin Macdonald and Maxine Peake.
“I feel it’s a very special line-up of films in this year’s programme,” Gráinne Humphreys, returning festival director, commented. “From the wonderful season of African films to the fascinating strand of documentaries to the incredibly diverse and exciting range of new work from Irish film-makers.”
International features making their Irish debut include İlker Çatak’s The Teacher’s Lounge, the hugely tense German entry for best international feature at the Oscars; Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist, the Japanese director’s gorgeous, troubling follow-up to Drive My Car; Ethan Coen’s Drive-Away Dolls, the director’s first fiction film without his brother Joel; Matt Brown’s Freud’s Last Session, featuring Anthony Hopkins as the eponymous psychoanalyst, and Michel Franco’s Memory, for which Peter Sarsgaard, playing a man with early-onset dementia, won the Volpi Cup for best actor at Venice.
As ever, there is a host of enticing domestic releases. TWIG stars Sade Malone and Brian F O’Byrne in a knotty drama that shot on location in 2022. “We have an extraordinary cast, crew at the top of their game,” Quinn, director of the well-remembered 32A, said. That They Shall Face the Rising Son has Collins, among the most celebrated Irish documentarians of his era, directing Barry Ward, Ruth McCabe and Lalor Roddy in a tale of varied lives lived in quiet beauty. “A lyrical, loving celebration of the everyday,” Screen International said following the world premiere at the London Film Festival.
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Peter Coonan was at the launch in support of Dermot Malone’s incoming King Frankie. The actor stars as a taxi driver facing up to a troubled past. He remembered his first time at the festival with a Mark Connor film. “My first experience with Between the Canals nearly 12 years ago,” he told The Irish Times. “Since then, it’s been it’s been a joy to be involved – to have friends and family able to get the Luas or a bus in to watch films. For me, it’s always been a chance to watch international movies which you wouldn’t normally get a chance to watch in cinemas.”
Other Irish features include Maurice O’Carroll’s Swing Bout, a crime thriller; Danny McCafferty’s The Line, dealing with immigration, and Colin Hickey’s haunting Perennial Light, a coming-of-age tale.
Sunday February 25th will see a “Lord Mayor’s Gala” built around a screening of the latest documentary from the prolific Alan Gilsenan. Written by John Walsh, Gilsenan’s The Irish Question draws on contributions from people such as Bill Clinton, John Major and Mary Lou McDonald for a consideration of what a future united Ireland might bring.
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Kevin Macdonald, director of The Last King of Scotland and One Day in September, will be in the city with High & Low: John Galliano, a film on that designer. McQueen, Oscar winner for 12 Years a Slave, will receive a Volta award, the festival’s career-achievement prize, and will take part in a series of public interviews. Those conversations are to be sponsored by Tanqueray 0.0, the festival’s new “premium partner”. Huppert is also to receive a Volta, named after the cinema managed by James Joyce, and she will be there for the premiere of her new film, Sidonie in Japan.
The Dublin International Film Festival runs from February 22nd to March 2nd.
