CANNES on Sunday was dominated by the festival's 50th anniversary celebrations with some 25 previous Palme d'Or winners travelling from all over the world for a dignified and emotional ceremony in the Festival Palais. Earlier in the evening, it was the turn of the Irish to celebrate.
With two new Irish movies having their world premieres in the Cannes market that night, Siobhan O'Donoghue of Media Desk Ireland, the Irish, information office of the EU Media Programme, organised a reception in the Jameson Club on the third floor of the Palais. It was held, she said to recognise the growing internationalisation of Irish film and the key roles the Media Programme has played".
Guests of honour were the teams behind the two new movies - Johnny Gogan and Paul Donovan from The Last Bus Home and Paddy Breathnach, Conor McPherson and Robert Walpole from I Went Dawn.
While torrential rain lashed the Palais, the 100-odd guests were offered a choice of whiskey or orange juice. They included Jacques Delmoly, head of the Media Programme, Derek Malcolm, film critic of the Guardian; Ben Gibson, head of the British Film Institute's production board; Andre Burgess, from the London-based agency International Arts, and Alan Greenspan, who is Donnie Brasco director Mike Newell's partner in Dogstar Films.
From Ireland came directors Pat Murphy, Mary McGuckian and Frank Stapleton; producers Ed Guiney, David Collins, Ronan Glennane, Michael Garland, Catherine Tiernan and Jane Gogan; Richard Taylor of the Northern Ireland Film Council; Chris O Grady from the Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht; Irish Media supremos David Kavanagh, who is based in London, and John Dick, who is Brussels-based James Flynn and Tracy Geraghty from Bord Scannan na hEireann; Kevin Menton of Irish Screen and, with lawyers beginning to outnumber producers at Cannes, James Hickey of Matheson Ormsby Prentice and John Given from A & L Goodbody,