EU & MEDIA Film News September 2024

The Irish members of Europa Cinemas include:

• IFI, Dublin and IFI@Home
• Triskel Arts Centre, Cork
• Lighthouse Cinema, Dublin
• Palás, Galway
• Access Cinema Network of regional cinema clubs
• Volta VOD online
• MyCinema.ie is an EU-supported platform, operated by access>CINEMA Ireland, on which you can you can rent a curated selection of the best world cinema.

European Film Awards 2024 - First Round of Nominated Films

The European Film Academy announced the 29 European films which have been selected for the first round of the Feature Film Selection for the European Film Awards 2024.

Irish film Kneecap has been selected to compete for best Feature Film. Written and directed by Rich Peppiat and produced by Trevor Birney, Jack Tarling, and Patrick O’Neill, Kneecap was winner of Best Irish Film at the Galway Film Fleadh this year. It also won the Audience Award and the Irish Language Feature Film Award.

Some of the other films in the running include Yorgos Lanthimos’ Kinds Of Kindness, Andrea Arnold’s Bird; Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Perez; Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed Of The Sacred Fig; Miguel Gomes’ Grand Tour; Halfdan Ullmann Tønde’s Armand and Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance.

The 29 films in Round 1 were selected by the European Film Academy board to be considered by its members for the upcoming European Film Awards which takes place on 7th December in Lucerne, Switzerland.

The Boy That Never Was, 9.30pm RTE One, Sundays from 1st September, 2024

The first episode of The Boy That Never Was aired on Sunday 1st September on RTÉ One. This 4-part thriller series stars Colin Morgan, Toni O’Rourke, Kerr Logan, Simon Callow and is based on the Karen Perry book. Karen Perry is the pen name of Dublin-based authors Paul Perry and Karen Gillece.

After their son is presumed dead in an earthquake in Morocco, a couple's world is turned upside down when they spot a young boy in Dublin, leading them on a desperate search for the truth.

The four-part series returns at 9.30pm next Sunday 8th on RTE One. Catch up on the first episode of The Boy That Never Was on the RTÉ Player.

Produced by Subotica Films who developed the project with MEDIA Slate funding.

That They May Face the Rising Sun | IFI at Home

That They May Face the Rising Sun is an adaptation of the final novel from John McGahern. Directed by Pat Collins who wrote the screenplay with Eamon Little. Pat Collins' previous documentary work includes John McGahern: A Private World (2005) as well as the feature films, Song of Granite and Silence.

Capturing a year in the life of a rural, lakeside community in Ireland in the 1970’s, the film stars Barry Ward (Jimmy’s Hall) and Anna Bederke (Soul Kitchen) in the lead roles. Lalor Roddy, Sean McGinley, Ruth McCabe, and first-time actor Phillip Dolan make up the cast of supporting characters.Joe and Kate Ruttledge have returned from London to live and work among the small, close-knit community where Joe grew up. Now deeply embedded in life around the lake, the drama of a year in their lives and those of the memorable characters around them unfolds through the rituals of work, play, and the passing seasons.

Irish company, South Wind Blows, received Creative Europe MEDIA development support for the film.

IFI Documentary Festival 25th to 29th September

The IFI Documentary Festival returns to bring a crop of long and short form non-fiction film to audiences. International documentaries include Basel Adra's No Other Land in which the Palestinian activist documents how his community of Masafer Yatta is gradually eradicated by the destruction and forced displacements of the Israeli occupation.

Union explores how in April 2022, a group of ordinary workers made history when they successfully won their election to become the first unionised Amazon workplace in America.

In Black Box Diaries, Japanese journalist Shiori Itō embarks on a courageous investigation of her own sexual assault to prosecute her high-profile offender; her quest becomes a landmark case, exposing the country’s outdated judicial and societal systems.

Mati Diop's Dahomey won the Golden Bear at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival. She employs an unconventional documentary-hybrid to follow royal treasures of the Kingdom of Dahomey as they leave the vaults of a Parisian museum to return to their country of origin, the present-day Republic of Benin.

The Irish slate offers a wide sweep of documentary practice with Q&A's with the director's after screenings. The opening film The Gap in Consent by Tom Burke offers an engaging primer on documentary ethics. Declan Clarke's How I Became a Communist reflects on the decline of a unified left wing movement in Europe and also depicts the daily life of an elderly woman running a farm in the countryside on the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.

'Mike Sheridan’s urgent interrogation of the far-right is counterpointed by Alessandra Celessi’s haunting portrait of post-conflict trauma in Belfast; television archives provide much food for thought in Roisin Agnew’s study of the British Broadcasting ban and in Ciaran Cassidy’s decades-spanning celebration of Irish women in Housewife of the Year,' source IFI.

In addition, The GALPAL Collective curates a selection of international shorts in Blossoming: Tales of Growing Up on Saturday 28th September from 1:40pm.

Multi-film bundles: 5 films for €55 available from the IFI Box Office or over the phone on (01) 6793477.

Sátántangó | Triskel Arts Centre, Saturday 28th September, 12pm

Béla Tarr’s adaptation of Laszlo Karsnahorkai’s novel about the decline of Communism in Eastern Europe is widely considered to be a masterpiece that transcends genre. A group of lost souls in a Hungarian agricultural collective suffer after the collapse of their Communist utopia. They face an uncertain future until the arrival of a charismatic stranger they come to believe will offer them salvation.

'One of Tarr’s most well-known films is SÁTÁNTANGÓ, a 450-minute adaptation of the novel by László Krasznahorkai, featured in the Berlinale’s Forum section 1994 where it won the Caligari award. The film also won the Grand Prix of the Jury at the Budapest Hungarian Film Week and quickly reached cult status, often referred to as one of the most important films of the 1990s. It also exemplifies quite well Béla Tarr’s unique style, his films following their own rhythm, taking time in long black and white shots,' states the EFA who awarded director Béla Tarr a Special Honorary Award from the European Film Academy at the 2023 European Film Awards.

There will be two 20 minute intermissions during this special screening of Sátántangó which is seven hours long. Please note that the film contains scenes of animal cruelty that some viewers may find distressing.

This special screening of Sátántangó is part of the Will Heaven Fall Upon Us? A Béla Tarr Retrospective touring programme. The other films in this series – WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES, DAMNATION and THE TURIN HORSE – will be screened in October.

A Woman Under The Influence | Lighthouse Cinema Dublin, Sunday 15th Sep

Released in 1974, Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk are Mabel and Nick Longhetti, a blue-collar couple struggling to cope with Mabel's slide into mental illness. A key work from a golden era of American independent filmmaking this masterpiece is as powerful today as it was when it was first released. The film received two Oscar nominations in 1957 – Gena Rowlands for Best Actress and Cassavetes for Best Director. Gena Rowlands passed away on 12th August this year.