Michael Dwyeron film
The winner of the tightly contested Tiernan McBride Award for best short at Galway Film Fleadh last Sunday was the tense, violent drama Martin, written, directed and edited by National Film School graduate Seán Branigan.
It features Gary Lydon in a vivid portrayal of an aggressive, self-destructive wreck of a man. Renewed contact with his concerned daughter (Leanne Kearney) offers a glimmer of hope in this tight, uncompromising drama set over an eventful, astutely judged 15 minutes.
The runner-up prize went to Juanita Wilson's The Door, a deeply moving drama set in the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Shot in Kiev and Minsk, this accomplished film was achieved with a level of ambition matched by assurance. It was the outstanding new production from the Irish Film Board/RTÉ Short Cuts and Short Shorts initiatives.
Other notables included Brian Durnin's stylish Of Best Intentions, Conor Ferguson's affecting Atlantic with Liam Cunningham as a lonely farmer, and Lowland Fell, directed by Michael Kinirons, in which an encounter between a 17-year-old girl and two brothers builds to a ménage à trois.
Providing light relief were John Kennedy and Ruairí O'Brien's engaging Hoor, in which three schoolboys visit a prostitute, and Hugh O'Conor's entertaining Spacemen Three, with Peter McDonald, Michael McElhatton and Pat Shortt.
Full-frontal assault on movie titles
Gurinder Chadha's Angus, Thongsand Full-Frontal Snogginghas had a late change of title, but not to make it less cumbersome. Apparently the British Board of Film Classification would not grant a PG certificate to a film with the words "thongs" and "full-frontal" in the same title. And it was feared that American parents would not let their children see any movie with "full-frontal" in the title.
Renamed Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, it opens here next Friday with a PG cert from the Irish censor's office, which gives the advisory: "Gentle 'rites-of-passage' comedy of young teenage girls' romance/angst. Mild sex references."
The film will be the first released here by Niamh McCaul in her new post as general manager of Paramount Pictures International (Ireland). She founded the independent distribution company Eclipse Pictures through which she released movies as diverse as The Passion of the Christ, The Magdalene Sisters, La Vie en Roseand Pavee Lackeen.
A double Irish for director DeVito
Irish actors Pierce Brosnan and Saoirse Ronan join Morgan Freeman in The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, which starts shooting in September, with Danny DeVito in the director's chair. Ronan, an Oscar nominee this year for Atonement, will play the title role, an adventurous teen travelling by ship from England to the US in the 1830s. Brosnan plays the captain who has to deal with a mutinous crew, with Freeman as the cook.
Tarantino flick finally taking off
After years of talking up Inglorious Bastards, Quentin Tarantino is finally set to make the movie in the autumn. He met Brad Pitt in France on Tuesday and offered him a key role, and he was due to meet Leonardo DiCaprio yesterday regarding another principal part. Set during the second World War, the movie will be shot in Germany and France, and Tarantino hopes it will be ready for a world premiere at Cannes in May.
Gregory Peck award for Dingle
The second Dingle Film Festival, which runs from September 11th to 14th, will inaugurate the Gregory Peck Award for Excellence in the Arts of Film.
"My father's grandmother came from Dingle and any time he visited there, he always had a sense of coming home," says his daughter Cecilia Peck, who co-directed the Dixie Chicks documentary Shut Up and Sing. She will attend the festival to introduce a special screening of To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), featuring her father in one of his most celebrated performances. The festival will close with Barbara Kopple's documentary, A Conversation with Gregory Peck. www.dinglefilmfestival.com
A bit provocative this is not
The plague of mobile phones in cinemas and theatres claimed Kevin Kline as a victim when he starred in the New York production of Cyrano de Bergerac.
An audience member in the third row made her dinner plans during his death speech.
Kline recalled the incident this week: "She picks it up and says, 'Yeah, no, I'm still here. He's lying down. It's going to be over soon. Yeah, no, he's dying. I'll be a couple more minutes. You can order for me. Okay. He's dead. I'll be right there'."
