Film director and acting teacher Jack Garfein (81) will be one of the main guests at the launch later this week of the 2012 Charlie Chaplin Comedy Film Festival.
He is also to be one of the judges at the festival in Waterville, Co Kerry, which is running for the second year this August.
Waterville was loved by the Chaplins as a holiday destination. It has long had a statue of the actor. The festival was set up last year with the encouragement of Chaplin’s family, a number of whom retain strong links with Waterville and have holiday homes there.
Noelle Campbell Sharpe of the Cill Rialaig Artists’ Centre in south Kerry, who has helped establish the festival and who advises on a voluntary basis, said that getting Garfein to come was a coup for this year’s festival.
A survivor of Auschwitz, Garfein came to the US after the second World War and took classes in acting in New York. He worked on Broadway and on European stages, producing the plays of Arthur Miller, Seán O’Casey and Samuel Beckett. President Michael D Higgins is a patron of the festival this year.
The festival runs from August 23rd to 26th.