NEW IRISH SHORTS: A Preview Presented by the Cork International Film Festival Films introduced by Mick Hannigan and Martin McLoone

Some of the most exciting, challenging, and creative film work to come out of Ireland has been in the short film format. The film program at Re-Imagining Ireland will present three series of truly excellent work from young Irish filmmakers. Most are short dramas, illuminating in their representations of contemporary Ireland. A number of the films are animations or abstract, avant-garde productions, displaying the growing creative maturity of Irish filmmakers who are working with the short form. While Irish sources and texts are used, more often the range of influences is clearly international – and there is a confident playfulness in such borrowings.

Titles include the multi-award-winning Give Up Yer Old Sins and Fifty Per Cent Grey, both of which were nominated in the Best Animated Short category at the 2002 Academy Awards. Watch out for Flying Saucer Rock n Roll, a clever parody of US teen-exploitation movies from the 50s, transposed with significant effect to Northern Ireland of the 90s.

A number of abstract shorts include stunningly beautiful and intriguing work from leading Irish artist (and now filmmaker) Claire Langan and from Paddy Jolley. Titles from the recent Cork Film Festival’s short film program include top award-winner The Last Time, the extraordinarily accomplished pastiche (drawing on Godard's Alphaville, Irish-language drama, and 20th-century Irish history) Eireville, and The Making of A Prodigy.

Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Alan Gilsenan (The Road To God Knows Where) turns his talents to drama in the powerful Zulu 69, taking the smuggling of African migrants into Ireland as its theme. Buskers is another film dealing with the new (for Ireland) phenomenon of immigration.

SHORTS PROGRAM I
Running Time: 67 minutes
Vinegar Hill Theatre, 5/8, 4:15 p.m.

Paddy
Cashell Horgan/ 2000 / 10 mins /35mm/ Color / Animation
Paddy takes a humorous look at stereotypes of Ireland and the Irish.

Blessed Fruit
Orla Walsh / 1999 / 16 mins / 35mm / Color
Two weeks late and two possible fathers, what’s a girl to do?

Guy’s Dog
Rory Bresnihan / 1998 / 11 mins / 135 mm / Color / Animation
A dark comic model animation about a dog who thinks he’s a man trapped in a dog’s body.

Burn
Paddy Jolley, Reynold Reynolds / 2001 / 10 mins / 35mm / Color
Created by the simple expedient of setting a house on fire, Burn features spontaneous combustion, conflagration and immolation.

Buskers
Ian Power / 2000 / 13 mins / 16mm /Color
The story of the battle between an Irish boy and a young Rumanian immigrant to secure a space to beg at a Dublin train station.

Meeting Che Guevara And The Man From Maybury Hill
Anthony Byrne / 2002 / 17 mins / 35mm / Black and White
During the Cuban missile crisis, a young woman from a small Irish town, fascinated with H.G. Wells, imaginatively blends science fiction and a potentially real war of the world.

SHORTS PROGRAM II
Running time: 65 minutes
Vinegar Hill Theatre, 5/9, 2:30 p.m.

In Loving Memory
Audrey O’Reilly / 1999 / 12 mins / 35mins / Color
In a love story set between this world and the next, Mrs. Duane finds a very special way of dealing with her husband’s death. Winner, Best Short, Cork Film Festival, 1999

Storm
Clare Langan / 2001 / 3 mins / 35mm / Color
This poetic interpretation of the familiar highlights our brief and fragile existence in the face of the apparently limitless forces of nature. Youth Jury Award, Best International Short, Cork Film Festival, 2002

Against The Wall
Chris Hurley / 2001 / 3 mins / 35mm/ Color
A group of young “travellers” strive for acceptance through sport: “All you needed was a ball and a wall, ...winning was great, we weren’t used to it.”

Lip Service
Paul Mercier / 1998 / 18 mins / 35mm / Color
On the day of the oral Irish exam at a north Dublin community school, everyone is “stressed out,” speaking a language in which they don’t normally communicate. Audience Award, Cork Film Festival 200

Give Up Yer Aul Sins
Cathal Gaffney / 2001 / 5 mins / 35mm / Color/ Animation
Based on Margaret Cunningham work in 1960’s Dublin schoolrooms, the film dramatizes the arrival of a TV crew that records the story of John the Baptist told as only children can. Best International Short, Cork Film Festival, 2002. Nominated: Best Short Animation, Academy Awards, 2002

Eireville
James Finlan / 2002 / 24 mins / Beta / Black & White / Subtitled
Lemmy Curamach, private detective, enters the futuristic metropolis of Eireville. His mission: to locate and destroy the evil ruler Patrick Von Pearsemann. Festival Award, Cork Film Festival, 2002

SHORTS PROGRAM III
Running time: 64 minutes
Vinegar Hill Theatre, 5/10, 4:15 p.m.

The Making of a Prodigy
Colm McCarthy / 2002 / 12 mins / 35mm / Color
In this Faustian tale, a teacher who discovers a prodigiously talented twelve-year-old painter in her class finds her devotion tested as she works to secure the student’s place in history.

Fifty Per Cent Grey
Ruairi Robinson / 2001 / 3 mins / 35mm / Color/ Animation
Sergeant wakes up alone, a widescreen TV his only company in a place designed for him to relax in peace, for all eternity. Nominated, Best Short Animation, Academy Awards, 2002

Zulu 9
Alan Gilsenan / 2001 / 11 mins / 35mm / Color
Does Montford, a trucker, tired of driving and life, imagine those noises in the back? Touching on the fate of immigrants smuggled into Ireland. Winner, Audience Award. Best Irish Short, Cork Film Festival, 2002

Chicken
Barry Dignam / 2001 / 3 mins / 35mm / Color
A micro-drama about two alienated teenagers who go “ditch-drinking” and find their nerves tested to the limit in a series of male bonding rituals.

Clare Sa Speir/Clare In The Air
Audrey O’Reilly/ 2001 / 20 mins / 35mm / Color
Taken for granted and stuck in a rut, a housewife decides to take to the skies. But where does that leave her family below? A drama in the Irish language.

No Homework
Anthony Ruby / 2001 / 3 mins / 35mm/ Black and White / Animation
As the sun rises on the chilly streets of Cork, a frightened boy makes his lonely way to school...

The Last Time
Conor Horgan / 2002 / 12 mins / 35mm / Color
Fearing the worst about her health and future, a mature woman goes out looking for love in all the wrong places. Best Irish Short, Cork Film Festival 2002

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