ADIFF: Behind the Scenes

Audi Dublin International Film Festival’s “Behind The Scenes” strand will consist of Industry Panels, Seminars and Master Classes. Thi­­s strand enjoys a broad focus, whether you are a filmmaker, film student or film enthusiast, touching on subjects from film programming, screenwriting and cinematography to history on film, emerging technologies, classification and music composition. Notable guests are Oscar-nominated screenwriter and celebrated playwright David Hare, Oscar-winning composer Jan A.P. Kaczmarek and double Oscar-winning cinematographer Chris Menges.

History on Film is a key theme throughout the programme and will be the subject of a panel discussion hosted by Pearse St. Library. Seen, but Unnoticed is a reunion event for those who took part in the production of Michael Collins, reuniting 20 years on to share memories and anecdotes from their time on set. 1916 At The Pictures will see City Hall turned into a cinema for a triple bill of Charlie Chaplin films that were screening in one of the many cinemas on O’Connell St at the outbreak of the Rising.

This year ADIFF is presenting not one, but two exhibitions of photography. Patrick Redmond, 25 Years will celebrate the work of the Festival Photographer and his extensive catalogue of wonderful guest portraits dating back to the early 1990s. The second photography exhibition #Setlife aims to highlight and celebrate skilled and hardworking crews working on location and on set for very long hours through key moments snapped to allow audiences a view of life in production.

 

MASTER CLASSES in association with Screen Training Ireland

David Hare: “Telling Details” – A Writer’s Master Class

Saturday 20^th February at 11:00am

The Teachers’ Club, Parnell Square West, Dublin 1

Tickets: €25 apply via Industry@diff.ie

Host: Malcolm Campbell

A unique opportunity to hear directly from one of Britain’s most prolific writers for both stage and screen. This is a fantastic opportunity for writers both of original screenplays and anyone seeking to adapt works for the screen. As part of this Master Class the components of plot, character and structure will be dissected and explored. This Master Class will focus on approaches to screenwriting and delve deeply into the various elements that are integral to the delivery of a quality screenplay.

 

Chris Menges: “Scenes Being Believed” – A Cinematographer’s Master Class

Sunday 21^st February at 12:00pm

The Lir Academy, Pearse St, Dublin 2

Tickets: €25 apply via Industry@diff.ie

Host: Irish Society of Cinematographers

This Master Class will draw on Chris Menge’s vast experience working across different genres, formats, locations and environments (including The Mission and The Killing Fields). The aim is to bring this knowledge to bear in a context that will teach the participants about collaborative dynamics between a director and their cinematographer. It will also aspire to touch on a cinematographer’s tools of the trade, traditional methodologies and how story and character should influence the look of the piece as opposed to format or the latest technological toys.

SCREENTEST in association with the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI)

Rebellion: From Script to Screen

Monday 22nd February at 13:30

The Teachers’ Club, 36 Parnell Street West, Dublin 1

Tickets: €7 / Book Online at diff.ie

The divisive television production Rebellion marked the beginning of RTE’s 1916 centenary programming. Boasting a starry cast led by Charlie Murphy and Sarah Greene it focused on various female protagonists from different backgrounds, loyalties and ideals, in the days surrounding the Rising, occasionally weaving in the actual heroes of 1916 amidst locations such as Dublin Castle, the G.P.O. and Collins Barracks. Writer Colin Teevan, Producer Catherine Magee, Costume Designer Alison Byrne, as well as some of the key crew, look back on the shoot and discuss the various production stages beginning with script, casting and scheduling right through to principal photography and post-delivery, including location shooting during the summer in Dublin’s city centre.

 

BYOD: BRING YOUR OWN DEVICE

Wednesday 24th February at 13:30

The Teachers’ Club, 36 Parnell Street West, Dublin 1

Tickets: €7 / Book Online at diff.ie

It has been said that constant mobile device usage is isolating and restricts human contact. But, like it or not, mobile devices are now an integral part of daily life. While some people simply long for a time when phones simply made and received calls, the reality is fast moving toward the virtual, or even the augmented. Google Cardboard, vlogging, 360° video, mojo journalism, even the film industry itself with films like Tangerine, are all now extending the use of mobile devices and pushing boundaries daily. Hell, you can even buy a camera drone for £50 and give your short film aerial photography now. A panel of experts will discuss how new cutting edge apps will rapidly become the thing you cannot live without.

 

Explicit Content

Friday 26th February at 13:30

The Teachers’ Club, 36 Parnell Street West, Dublin 1

Tickets: €7 / Book Online at diff.ie

With the landscape of broadcast and cinema constantly changing, approaches to classification and content regulation require constant appraisal. This panel discussion aims to take an in-depth look at the various factors that must be applied to both film classification and content regulation for broadcast. Issues like classifications on youth targeted films, depictions of violence on television, or codes of fairness will be explored in a unique opportunity to see how and why decisions are reached. Experts from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, the Irish Film Classification Office and the media will discuss the various aspects of managing complaints, adhering to regulations for youth audiences and freedom of expression. Just don’t expect a serious discussion of why Rebellion opted for a hard R-rating thus invalidating its use as an educational tool unlike either HBO’s John Adams or BBC’s 37 Days.

 

SPECIAL EVENTS

Cinema Snapshots / With Sunday Miscellany & Dublin City Libraries

Sunday 7th February at 09:10, radio broadcast and online podcast on RTE.ie

Going to the cinema is a unique and sometimes magical experience. It can transport you out of your seat; at Q&As your mind can be opened up to the worlds of the director, the actor, the screenwriter. Writers and poets involved with Dublin City Libraries writing groups shared their experiences of cinema in Dublin. Sunday Miscellany on Sunday the 7th February at 9.10am is a special edition that will hear the winning submission from those Library groups and also feature well-known Irish filmmakers, lecturers, presenters and writers (including John Connolly, Ciaran Carton and Ruth Barton) providing their own perspectives on what the cinema and film in Dublin means to them.

 

#SetLife / Photography Exhibition

Thursday 18th – Sunday 28th February

Lighthouse Cinema

#SetLife is an exhibition of photography from behind the scenes of various Irish film and television productions. Presented in association with Lovemovies.ie on behalf of the Industry Trust for IP Awareness, this exhibition will run in the Lighthouse and will display a selection of photographs taken on Irish sets by various cast and crew members of day-to-day life on set. #SetLife aims to capture the scale of work that goes into bringing something from script to screen, and the army of people across various departments who work tirelessly to make it all happen.

 

Dublin Here, Dublin There

Saturday 20th February in Dublin Public Library, Dublin Texas

Friday 26th February in Dublin Arts Centre, Dublin Ohio & Pulaski County Library System, Dublin Virginia

ADIFF has a strong history of successful outreach programmes and has a fantastic reputation of working with festivals around the world. In 2016 ADIFF has allied with the communities of Dublin in Ohio, Texas and Virginia – who have each offered their knowledge, resources and venues to help share a programme of the best Irish shorts with audiences in the US. The project aims to strengthen Dublin’s connection with these communities to bring awareness, as well as Ireland’s love of cinema, to the greater worldwide diaspora.

 

Programming for Programmers

Friday 19th February at 14:00

The Teachers’ Club, 36 Parnell Street West, Dublin 1

Tickets: €7 / Book online at diff.ie

Chaired by Hugh Murray (Pavilion Theatre).

Mark Adams (Artistic Director, Edinburgh Film Festival), Nashen Moodley (Festival Director, Sydney Film Festival), Gregg M. Schwenk (CEO and Executive Director Newport Beach Film Festival) and Ania Trzebiatowska (Artistic Director PKO Off Camera & Manager of Acquisitions for Visit Films) will provide insight into the world of programming as an international Artistic Directors. From the moving puzzle of international distribution to inviting guests and the challenges of the red carpet, these experts will discuss the subtlety of programming. This event is a networking opportunity for new and advanced programmers to meet each other and to gain perspective from top festival professionals.

 

Pat Redmond, 25 Years / A Celebration

Tuesday 16th February – Wednesday 16th March

The Georgian Society, 58 South William Street, Dublin 2 and The Powerscourt Centre, 59 South William Street, Dublin 2

In a world increasingly dominated by the snap, selfie and speed shot, this exhibition will celebrate the work of a true master of the art of film portrait photography, who has provided Dublin’s film festival, in its numerous guises over the past quarter century, with an indelible photographic record of the eclectic array of filmmakers who have graced the festival.

HISTORY ON FILM

 

Seen But Unnoticed / A Reunion of the Background Artists and Extras of Michael Collins

Saturday 20th February at 12:00

The Teachers’ Club, 36 Parnell Street West, Dublin 1

Tickets: Free event / Please email industry@diff.ie to register your interest

They came by the busload, graciously offering time for free (in a move that saw Hugh Leonard award Neil Jordan his ‘Cute Hoor of the Year’ Award) and supplementing the period costumes with clothes they brought themselves in order to participate in one of the most ambitious undertakings of Irish Cinema history, Neil Jordan’s Michael Collins. To celebrate the 20^th anniversary of this remarkable production ADIFF invites those who took part in the production to join a special reunion and retrospective of the amazing shoot.

 

History on Film / Film on History

Tuesday 23rd February at 17:00

Pearse Street Library, 144 Pearse Street, Dublin 2

Tickets: Free event, book online at diff.ie

In this year of anniversary and commemoration a panel of filmmakers, academics and journalists will discuss the relationship between cinema and history. A full list of films included in the ‘History on Film’ strand will be accompanied by talks and discussions. The nettle that might not be grasped is the baneful effect of films like Zero Dark Thirty on popular understanding of historical events even as they attempt to win Oscars by virtue of their historical cachet.

 

1916 At The Pictures

Wednesday 24th February at 14:00 (81 minutes)

City Hall, Dame Street, Dublin 2

Tickets: Email info@diff.ie for ticketing information

ADIFF will recreate the cinema of 1916 as it was, by representing the films which would have been shown in the cinemas of Dublin on that fateful Easter week. Archive research has uncovered cinema listings from April 1916, including screenings at old venues on O’Connell Street such as the Picture Pillar House. From within the list of archive titles a restoration of some classic Charlie Chaplin films from his early career shows the beginnings of some of his most beloved and remembered characters including the Tramp.

The Bank: Charlie the janitor loves Edna, the pretty bank secretary, but her sweetheart is another Charles, the cashier.

The Champion: This comedy has Charlie finding employment as a sparring partner who fights in the prize ring and wins the championship match, with the help of his pet bulldog.

The Tramp: Charlie saves a farmer’s daughter from some thieving toughs and subsequently stops their attempt to rob the farm.

PUBLIC INTERVIEWS

 

Interview with David Hare and ‘The Hours’ screening

Saturday 20th February

15:00 Interview (60 minutes)

16:30 The Hours (114 minutes)

IFI 1

Tickets: €9 each or €15 for both events. Tickets also available from IFI Box Office, www.ifi.ie

Host: Sean Rocks

David Hare is well known for his work in theatre, having written more than thirty plays including Plenty, Pravda, Skylight, The Judas Kiss, snd a version of Ibsen’s The Master Builder currently running in the Old Vic. He has also been widely honoured for his long list of credits for the screen. He has written more than twenty screenplays for film and television including Plenty, Paris by Night, Weatherby and Damage. As a screenwriter he has twice been nominated for Oscars for his adapted screenplays on The Hours and The Reader, each of which also earned him nominations for a Golden Globe.  His haunting drama Weatherby won him a Golden Berlin Bear in 1985 and he has directed many actors to win awards for their work across his formidable back catalogue. ADIFF will present a screening of his adaptation of Michael Cunningham’s novel The Hours, where he will participate in a pre-screening interview with Sean Rocks of RTE Radio 1’s Arena.

 

Jan A.P. Kaczmarek / Composing For Film Seminar

Saturday 27th February

Royal Irish Academy of Music

Tickets: €15 Book Online at diff.ie

Host: Bill Whelan

Jan A. P. Kaczmarek is a composer with a tremendous international reputation that continues to grow. His first success in the United States came in theatre. After composing striking scores for productions at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre and Los Angeles’s Mark Taper Forum, he won an Obie and a Drama Desk Award for his music for the New York Shakespeare Festival’s 1992 production of John Ford’s ’Tis Pity She’s A Whore, starring Val Kilmer and Jeanne Tripplehorn. Having composed music for films in Poland, he achieved recognition with scores to Total Eclipse, Bliss, Washington Square, Aimée & Jaguar, The Third Miracle, Lost Souls, Edges of the Lord, Quo Vadis and Unfaithful. In 2005 he won a Best Original Score Oscar for Finding Neverland.

 

 

JDIFF: Behind the Scenes

The Behind The Scenes strand at JDIFF 2015 recognises the importance of the Festival to Irish film-makers with a number of masterclasses, public interviews, panel discussions, conferences, and networking events. This year there is a special emphasis on the making of Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, as well as events with casting directors Margery Simkin (Top Gun) and Leo Davis (Layer Cake), and actors Robert Sheehan (Love/Hate) and Aidan Turner (Being Human).

 

Talking Kubrick

Marking the 40^th anniversary of Barry Lyndon, which receives a gala screening in the Savoy with both star Ryan O’Neal and producer Jan Harlan being interviewed by Lenny Abrahamson, there are three events related to Kubrick’s period epic.

 

Scene on the Square

2.00pm, Saturday 14^th March, Wolfe Tone Square

A free event in association with LoveMovies.ie sees a fencing duel being filmed live on the Square. In a unique opportunity to see cinematic magic created up close spectators can watch the video footage live-streamed onto a large screen while the MC explains the various roles of the crew members capturing the action sequence.

 

Kubrick’s Cameras and The Cinematography of Barry Lyndon

10.30am, Saturday 21^st March, Light House Cinema

The Irish Society of Cinematographers lends its imprimatur to this unmissable event for both aspiring camera operators and mere enthusiasts of Kubrick’s cinema legacy. Larry Smith, Doug Milsome, Laurie Frost, Joe Dunton, and Luke Quigley; members of the crew from Barry Lyndon one and all; will be discussing the making of the film, the challenge of working with director Stanley Kubrick, and the techniques they used to achieve the unforgettable look of the film, famous for its ultra-low-light candlelit scenes.

 

Producing with Jan Harlan

11.00am, Sunday 22^nd March, Light House Cinema

Jan Harlan was executive producer on Stanley Kubrick’s final four films Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and Eyes Wide Shut, and assisted on the production of A Clockwork Orange, as well as executive producing AI: Artificial Intelligence, and directing Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures. He was also Kubrick’s brother-in-law, which must have made for a complicated dynamics. He will share insights about his career, which has veered towards documentary after Kubrick’s death, and his working relationship with the eccentric self-mythologising director.

 

Talking Shop

A series of industry workshops and events features Robert Sheehan, Aidan Turner and Sarah Greene on acting, Reka Lemhenyi on editing, Tomm Moore on animating, Hossein Amini on writing movies, and Leo Davis and Margery Simkin on casting.

 

Broadcasting: A Changing Landscape

12.00pm, Friday 20^th March, Wood Quay

The first of the Festival’s Screen Test series, in association with BAI, features guests David Levine (General Manager, Disney Channels UK & Ireland) and Brian Furey (BAI). This event will discuss how new and emerging platforms such as Netflix & VOD are affecting the content being produced for TV & radio. The technological developments of these download services will be explored from the point of view of broadcasters and show-runners.

 

Animators in Conversation

1.30pm, Sunday 22^nd March, Light House Cinema

Two-time Oscar nominee writer/director Tomm Moore (The Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea), of Cartoon Saloon, and animation producer Didier Brunner (The Secret of Kells) will discuss developments in animation today, in a must-see for anyone interested in a career in one of Ireland’s fastest growing creative sectors, as well as lovers of animation.

 

The Art of Manipulation: Editing with Reka Lemhenyi

3.00pm, Monday 23^rd March, Teachers Club

In the second of the Screen Test series award-winning Hungarian editor Reka Lemhenyi (The Door) discusses editing techniques in depth and her illustrious career, including her work on Jerzy Skolimowksi’s Essential Killing, as well as Free Fall, which is screening as part of this year’s festival.

 

Expressing Emotion: Actors in Conversation

3.00pm, Tuesday 24^th March, Teachers Club

As part of the Screen Test strand, young acting talents Robert Sheehan (The Road Within, Love/Hate), Aidan Turner (Being Human, The Hobbit), and Sarah Greene (Noble, My Brothers) discuss their evolving careers, their training as actors, and how they got started in the industry.

 

Write to Live, Live to Write: Managing your Writing Career

3.00pm, Wednesday 25^th March, Teachers Club

In association with the Irish Writers Centre in Parnell Square, this event is aimed at screenwriters looking for advice about managing and maintaining their career, and the challenges of the creative process, idea management, and overcoming the dreaded writer’s block. The panel is comprised of script consultant Mary Kate O’Flanagan, story development professional Rachel O’Flanagan, Conor McMahon (From the Dark), and Pierce Ryan (Standby).

 

Conquering the Script (Day 1)

Friday 27^th March, Hugh Lane Gallery

The day will take participants on a journey from the early generation of ideas into the development of story through the paradigm of conflict and the crisis screen characters need to undergo in order to render a film powerful and engaging. There will be a story debate with film-makers about their completed films, the development process, and the story choices they made. Panellists and guests on the day will include director Lenny Abrahamson (Frank, Room), as well as development specialists Juanita Wilson (Octagon Films) and Eoin O’Faolain (Samson Films).

 

Conquering the Script (Day 2)

Saturday 28^th March, Wood Quay Venue

The second day kicks off with a debate on the current state of story-telling in Irish film and television drama. As the day continues another session is devoted to kitting out the development tool box, more story debate with a feature director, and the closing keynote interview with Drive screenwriter Hossein Amini. Panellists on the day will include Michael Kinirons, Will Collins, Eugene O’Brien, Ian Power and Carol Morely.

 

It Begins with the Script: Casting Event

2.00pm, Saturday 28^th March, Teachers Club

2015’s iteration of the popular JDIFF casting events sees Emmy-nominated Leo Davis, who has worked on Layer Cake, The Constant Gardener, The King’s Speech and The Queen, discuss her work in conversation with Margery Simkin, whose own credits include the blockbusters Avatar, Top Gun and Erin Brockovich.

 

Talking Ideas

Pulling back from the daily practice of film-making are three events that look at the bigger picture of cultural milieu, how cinema appropriates novels and history for its own purposes and how it then helps shape people’s experiences.

 

Perspectives in Pictures

12.00pm, Sunday 22^nd March, National Museum of Ireland Collins Barracks

Collins Barracks is the appropriately historic setting for a discussion on the cinematic depiction of history. Film-makers Mary McGuckian (The Price Of Desire), Se Merry Doyle (Talking To My Father), and Jennifer Goff, curator of the Eileen Gray collection at the National Museum of Ireland, will raise questions such as “do film-makers feel a responsibility to represent historical events accurately?” The answers will be interesting to hear following an Oscars dominated by prestige biopics which made a pigswill of history for the sake of deadening screenwriting clichés, while, as Maureen Dowd acidly noted of Selma’s depiction of LBJ, at the same time clutching their ‘historical authenticity’ tightly to their breasts as a talisman to win Oscars. Do film-makers have an ethical responsibility not to rewrite the past?

 

Seeking the Truth: Mark Cousins in Conversation

12.00pm, Thursday 26^th March, Irish Times Building

Northern Irish film-maker, critic, lecturer, sometime Moviedrome presenter, and programmer Mark Cousins (The Story of Film, 6 Desires: DH Lawrence and Sardinia) travels south to engage in a public interview about his life and work. Will he mention Brian De Palma’s absolute refusal to assent to Cousins’ reading of his films?

 

First Rule of Book Club….

2.30pm, Friday 27^th March, Pearse Street Library

With the current popularity of adaptations on large and small screen (Gone Girl, Game of Thrones, American Sniper) this discussion focuses on book to film adaptations, and what drives audiences towards one medium or another. Bob Johnston of the Gutter Bookshop and Jason Flood of Dublin City Comics will lead the debate on Hollywood’s hunger for stories. Will the latter cite Alan Moore’s contempt for moving a story designed to work perfectly in one medium into another purely to make more money and not for any creative purpose?

Selma

Selma brings to vivid life the struggle for civil rights in 1965 Alabama with a fiery performance from David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King Jr.

Four schoolgirls are murdered in a church bombing in Selma. Any prospect for justice is defeated by the refusal of Registrar (Clay Chappell) to allow people like Annie Lee Cooper (Oprah Winfrey) to register to vote (on ever shifting sands of spurious tests), thereby ensuring all-white juries. And so MLK (Oyelowo) rolls into town to whip up a mass demonstration to pressure LBJ (Tom Wilkinson) to put aside the Great Society and pass a Voting Rights Act instead. Little does he know that as well as facing the obvious threat of Alabama Governor George Wallace (Tim Roth), his henchman Col. Al Lingo (Stephen Root), and the vicious Selma Sheriff Jim Clark (Stanley Houston), he will face the shadowy threat of J Edgar Hoover (Dylan Baker) attempting to turn King’s wife Coretta (Carmen Ejogo) against him. Can MLK stay the course?

Oyelowo oozes charisma as he delivers three set-piece speeches during this film. But he also shows us a vulnerable side to King; riven by guilt over the deaths of protestors drawn by his rhetoric, self-doubt about whether his leadership will achieve civil rights, and shame at his infidelities. The other black leaders Ralph Abernathy (Colman Domingo), James Orange (Omar J Dorsey), James Bevel (Common), Bayard Rustin (Ruben Santiago-Hudson), Andrew Young (Andre Holland), John Lewis (Stephan James), James Forman (Trai Byers), Rev. Williams (Wendell Pierce), and Rev. Vivian (Corey Reynolds), are, perhaps inevitably, less particularised; but the ensemble is equal to the challenge laid down by Oyelowo’s lead performance. Selma is especially interesting when it explores conflict between these men; with egoism and principle equally important in arguments over leadership and non-violence; and when Malcolm X (Nigel Thatch) arrives in town.

But Selma has heavy baggage. Director Ava DuVernay’s Oscar snub is not that outrageous. Even if she did rewrite Paul Webb’s script as much as claimed she’d deserve a nod only for writing. The ones hard done by are Oyelowo and cinematographer Bradford Young; who once again does extraordinary things with warm shadows in MLK’s intimate moments of doubt. But the depiction of LBJ, as uninterested in civil rights and conniving at J Edgar sending a sex-tape to Coretta, has been hauled over the coals by Maureen Dowd, and her central charge; “Filmmakers love to talk about their artistic license to distort the truth, even as they bank on the authenticity of their films to boost them at awards season”; rings uncomfortably true. Rather David O Russell’s ‘Some of this actually happened’ than claiming your fictions are truer than history.

Selma is an extremely moving, often upsetting, chronicle of an extraordinary event, powered by a magnificent lead performance, but it’s not history and must be taken with much salt.

3.5/5