THE 41st Cork Film Festival will begin and end with films from playwrights. The festival opens on October 6th with a film by Trevor Nunn of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and closes the next Sunday with Trojan Eddie, the first feature film written by Irish playwright Billy Roche.
The Shakespeare adaptation, transposed to a late 19th-century setting, features a strong British cast led by Helena Bonham Carter, Richard E. Grant, Nigel Hawthorne and Ben Kingsley. Trojan Eddie, a contemporary story of travellers in Ireland, stars Richard Harris and Stephen Rea.
Renamed Murphy's Cork Film Festival to mark increased sponsorship from the Cork brewery, the festival presented its 1996 programme at a reception in Dublin yesterday evening.
Among new international films to be screened are British director Peter Greenaway's The Pillow Book, John Sayles's Lone Star from the US, Scott Hick's Australian Shine, and from the Netherlands, Marlene Gorris's Antonia's Line, which won the Oscar for best foreign-language film this year.
The new Irish feature films on the programme include Trish Mc Adam's Snakes and Ladders, starring Pom Boyd, Gina Moxley and Sean Hughes, and John T. Davis's The Uncle Jack.
In addition to its regular venues, Cork Opera House and Triskel Arts Centre, there will be a third venue in Kino, a new independent cinema to be run by Mr Mick Hannigan, the festival's programme director. All hands are on deck to ensure that Kino will be ready to open for the festival.