Reel News

The other film stories of the week...

Gongs all around at Cork festival

The prestigious, imperishable 54th Corona Cork Film Festival wound down last weekend with the announcement of the winners of the Short Film Awards. The prize for best short went to Elephant Skinfrom Austria.

The best Irish film gong was awarded to Claire Dix for the amusing Free Chips Forever!The Claire Lynch Award for best first-time Irish director went to Mark Noonan for Questions. The best international short was the animated Mutofrom Italy. Mike Hannon's appropriately titled My Beamish Boywalked off with the Made in Cork Award.

The full list of awards can be found at www.corkfilm fest.org/news/short-film-awards-2009

That’s not scary. This is scary

Today is Friday the 13th. Ooo! If you want to persevere with the illusion that today is scarier than any other day, then check out the special previews of the excellent Paranormal Activitythroughout the country. The low-budget horror film, which officially opens here in two weeks' time, has, according to one journal's calculation, just become the most profitable (when ranking the ratio of takings to budget) movie ever in the US. Take that, Blair Witch.

New scenes of the Little Tramp

So a lost Charlie Chaplin film has been purchased on eBay for £3.20? Well, sort of. It seems that the amusingly titled Zepped– snaffled by an Englishman named Morace Park – is a propaganda piece cobbled together from old footage by the Essanay film company after Chaplin had left that studio. So it's an interesting artefact, but not quite an undiscovered masterpiece by the great man.

Film Fleadh for the young ’uns

Be aware that the excellent Junior Galway Film Fleadh is still underway in that city. If you're nippy, you might still catch the screening of Ian McKellen's King Learthis morning. On Saturday morning, the event hosts animation workshops and a screening of Spirit of the Forestat the Town Hall Theatre. www.galwayfilmfleadh.com/junior/index.html

Lights out at the Kino?

Readers may know that the Kino Cinema in Cork, that city’s greatly loved prestige movie house, is currently under threat of closure. A campaign, bolstered by a Facebook site, has been underway to save the cinema and, at the end of last month, more than 300 Kino enthusiasts attended a meeting to register their displeasure.

“I knew people would be disappointed when they found out about the closure of the Kino,” Mick Hannigan, the cinema’s respected owner, said. “But I had really no idea at all of the depth of feeling and intense wish to help that I have got from people. I had resigned myself to the Kino’s closing, but this campaign has given me occasion to think again.”

For more information on ways to make your voice heard go to www.savethekino.com.