Line up announced for Irish Film Festa 2022
Date Posted: May 17, 2022
The 2022 edition of the IRISH FILM FESTA returns to Rome’s Casa del Cinema, Villa Borghese. This edition of the festival dedicated to Irish cinema and culture will be divided into two parts, the first scheduled for Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd May (in the cinema theatre and in streaming), the second, from Wednesday 20th to Sunday 24th July (indoors and outdoors).
“The programme though once again atypical and quite unlike our traditional March events, sees our return, at last, to the cinema theatre without abandoning the new viewing modes – streaming and the summer arena – successfully tested over the last two years”, says artistic director Susanna Pellis.
On the weekend of Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd May, viewers will be able to enjoy four feature films at the Casa del Cinema; while the shorts taking part in the competition will be viewable both in the theatre and in streaming. There will also be the Audience Award which spectators will be able to vote online.
Susanna Pellis explains: “One of the two days will be dedicated to cinema in the Irish language, which, recently, is experiencing a veritable boom also in terms of production. We shall pay a tribute to Cartoon Saloon by screening WolfWalkers, the most recent of the films created by the Kilkenny animation studios, all nominated for an Oscar and all screened by our festival. Finally, to remain faithful to one of our main threads, that dedicated to actors, the screening of Broken Law will permit us to host Tristan Heanue, a veribale rising star of Irish cinema: a talented actor, a director of excellent shorts (who with Ciúnas [Silence] won our 2020 edition) and is currently working on his first feature film.”
Broken Law by Paddy Slattery
Tristan Heanue is the intense protagonist of the thriller Broken Law, Paddy Slattery’s first feature film, presented at the Dublin International Film Festival: two estranged brothers, a policeman (Heanue) who proudly follows in his father’s footsteps in Dublin’s Garda Síochána and an ex-inmate (Graham Earley), question their own lives after a bungled robbery.
Foscadh (Shelter) by Seán Breathnach
Foscadh (Shelter) marks the feature-film debut of Seán Breathnach: acted in Irish and based on the novel The Thing About December by Donal Ryan, the film tells the story of 28-year-old John (Dónall O Héalai) who, after the death of his parents, is forced to clash with the outside world for the first time and emerge from the total isolation in which he had always lived in the mountains of Connemara.
Róise & Frank by Rachael Moriarty, Peter Murphy
A bittersweet comedy set in County Waterford: written and directed in Irish by Rachael Moriarty and Peter Murphy, Róise & Frank stages the encounter between Róise (Bríd Ní Neachtain), recently widowed after the death of her beloved Frank, and a dog that the woman staunchly believes is the reincarnation of her husband.
WolfWalkers by Tomm Moore, Ross Stewart – Tribute to Cartoon Saloon
The IRISH FILM FESTA has followed the production of Cartoon Saloon, the Irish animation studios founded in 1999 by Tomm Moore, Nora Twomey and Paul Young, from the start: all the group’s feature films were presented at the festival – The Secret of Kells (2009), Song of the Sea (2014) and The Breadwinner (2017) – as well as various shorts.
Therefore, the IRISH FILM FESTA deemed a screening of their most recent title, WolfWalkers by Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart, a must. Distributed in streaming at the end of 2020 by Apple TV +, the festival provides the unique opportunity to enjoy this magnificent work on the big screen. Wolfwalkers presents a fantastic re-imagining of the history of the island. This film brings us back to the Kilkenny of 1650 at the time of Oliver Cromwell’s invasion of Ireland. The Wolfwalkers of the title are a community of shape-shifters who turn into wolves by night.
The shorts competition: fiction, animation and documentaries
The competitive section of IRISH FILM FESTA, devoted to shorts, is back: a selection of twenty titles divided into three categories – drama, animation and documentaries – will present the best of one of the liveliest and most interesting sectors of the Irish film industry. The programme of the IRISH FILM FESTA, to be held between Wednesday 20th to Sunday 24th July, will be announced later. Like that of the summer-2021 edition, this too will take place at the Teatro all’Aperto of Rome’s Casa del Cinema.
IRISH FILM FESTA, created and directed by Susanna Pellis, is produced by the cultural association Archimedia, in collaboration with the Irish Film Institute, with the support of Culture Ireland, Screen Ireland, Turismo Irlandese; and with the patronage of the Embassy of Ireland in Italy.
