From the Archives: Beowulf 3-D

From the pre-Talking Movies archives.

The warrior Beowulf arrives to kill the monster Grendel, who is terrorizing King Hrothgar’s court. Killing Grendel enrages his demon mother, who made a deal with the treacherous Hrothgar, and Beowulf’s actions unleash a dragon.

Robert Zemeckis’ film of the Old English epic poem is a visually amazing triumph, which you should see in 3-D for full impact. There is a tracking shot which turns into an outrageous pull-out from Hrothgar’s hall, across the landscape, to Grendel’s cave. Hilariously this is more or less a tale of violence caused by noisy neighbours, as Grendel’s super-hearing is driven wild by the raucous celebrations at Hrothgar’s feasting hall. This film provides a deep down and dirty portrayal of Dark Ages bawdiness, especially in the salacious songs of the warriors and Anthony Hopkins’s startling performance as the lecherous drunken King Hrothgar. All of which makes Beowulf radically unsuitable for children. Zemeckis is after all Spielberg’s protégé and takes equal delight in seeing just what he can and cannot get in to a 12A film. The motion capture technology Zemeckis used in The Polar Express has been vastly improved (characters’ eyes are no longer soulless) and Zemeckis, who was always visually inventive, wows with the physically impossible shots it allows him achieve.

Hrothgar’s call for a hero to kill Grendel is answered by the warrior Beowulf. Killing Grendel is the easy part though as Beowulf discovers that Hrothgar was Grendel’s father. He had been seduced by a temptress demon who now wants her way with Beowulf. That popping sound you hear is the noise made by the imploding heads of Professors of Old English the world over. Screenwriters Neil Gaiman (Stardust) and Roger Avary (Pulp Fiction), who worked on the screenplay for nearly a decade, have based their script on the idea that Beowulf is an unreliable narrator. Which it must be admitted is a compelling justification for re-telling a tale that dates from around the 8^th century. Their version is filled, in the spirit of the original campfire telling, with over the top butch moments of heroism. Beowulf’s battles with sea-monsters and the climactic showdown with the dragon have moments which rival 300 for ridiculous machismo. The changes also tie together the three disconnected battles of the original in a more satisfying fashion while academics will be mollified by all Grendel’s dialogue being in Old English.

Crispin Glover’s portrayal of Grendel as a tortured half-demon, half-human outcast is quite touching and nicely counterpoints Ray Winstone’s cockney bellowing as Beowulf. Angelina Jolie appears, startlingly, full frontally nude but she’s a water demon and has some archly minimalist scales on her breasts so that’s okay. Hmmm, all I’ll say is that she’s suspiciously more photo-realistic than some other characters. This version of Beowulf was dogged by suspicions of style beating substance but Zemeckis justifies this approach by combining budget blowing spectacle (such as the dragon fight) with quiet moments between characters, and adhering to the poem’s spirit.

4/5

From the Archives: Starman – Interview with Matthew Vaughn

From the pre-Talking Movies archives.

InDublin talked to Stardust director Matthew Vaughn about casting and CGI, Sienna Miller and celebrity culture, and a comic book he’d never heard of….

Matthew Vaughn is just dripping with enthusiasm for Stardust. He’s been trying to get the film made since the start of the decade, and asked what drove him to adapt Neil Gaiman’s acclaimed novella simply replies, “I loved the story”. Vaughn sees Stardust as closer to The Princess Bride than The Lord of the Rings. “The main theme for me – it’s a movie about a boy becoming a man, and he becomes a man by falling in love with the right woman. But it’s done in a way which is fun, not taking itself seriously at all, a feel good adventure romp. So it’s a movie for everyone: when you come out of the cinema I dare you not to feel good”. Gaiman, as producer, was happy to give Vaughn free rein. “He trusted me. Because every time I wanted to do a big change I always rang him up and said ‘Look, I’m thinking of changing this – what do you think?’ because I valued his opinion….If you’ve got someone who’s created the idea and it’s their baby. For me they’re the best person to ring up to discuss if you’re thinking of changing a scene”.

Vaughn was painstaking with his casting. Once he’d settled on Charlie Cox as Tristan “the poor guy had to do three months of auditioning for me to find Yvaine….it’s about the chemistry between the two. And I didn’t want to end up with Tango & Cash, you know, I wanted it to be the right chemistry”. Vaughn cast his Layer Cake star Sienna Miller as Victoria despite the potential for distraction given her tabloid fodder status: “She [Victoria] is the It Girl of the village so I think it worked for the character and that’s one of the reasons I cast her”. Vaughn laments Miller’s tabloid troubles. “I just feel it’s a shame her acting is getting eclipsed. Cos she does some good work, but – she doesn’t get known for it. But I say to her ‘Just keep persevering’ and eventually someone will say ‘Oh you’re a good actress as well!’” He also blasts the whole celebrity culture as being unhealthy for everyone. “The whole Jade Goody phenomenon I just scratch my head going, ‘WHAT does this tell you about England?’ I’m a big believer that fame should be a by-product of talent and success and I’m a big believer that years ago, and maybe its naïve of me, but great politicians or actors or poets or writers or comedians they weren’t trying to be famous, they were just trying to be the best at what they do, and then they became famous because of it”.

Directing Layer Cake after producing Guy Ritchie’s films reinforced the perception that Vaughn preferred small projects but he claims “I’ve always wanted to do big cinema”. But working on smaller projects made him determined not to have the CGI swamp the characters in his blockbusters. “A movie’s about having an emotional connection and telling a story and if you have that the special effects for me are an enhancement”. Stardust’s use of wirework for a dead sword-fighter is an example. “We had a big puppet sort of control thing to make him…we literally just said go limp and let us control him, in a way he was a puppet with the voodoo doll”. InDublin’s geekery finally erupted and we asked if he had any plans to film Neil Gaiman’s awesome graphic novel 1602. Only to end up explaining what 1602 is: superheroes of the Marvel Universe appear in 1602 at the Court of Elizabeth I…and Magneto is the head of the Spanish Inqusition. “Neil’s never told me about that!…that sounds cool – that sounds right up my street! I’m going to ask Marvel about that tonight! 1602?” After musing over the tangled film rights of the various Marvel characters Vaughn simplified the plot based on his friendship with Ian McKellen aka Magneto, “Make it at Fox. Have Fantastic Four and Magneto together…Spanish Inquisition. He’d get a lot of confessions…” Watch this space.

From the Archives: Stardust

From the pre-Talking Movies archives.

Tristan Thorn (Charlie Cox) promises to bring back a fallen star from the magical kingdom of Sturmhold to impress spoilt rich girl Victoria (Sienna Miller). However the star turns out to be a young woman Yvaine (Claire Danes) who is also wanted by a murderous prince (Mark Strong) and a wicked witch (Michelle Pfeiffer).

Matthew Vaughn follows up his gritty British gangster thriller Layer Cake with a complete change of pace. Adapted from Neil Gaiman’s novella this is a fairytale that subverts audience expectations right from the off. Ian McKellen, like Morgan Freeman, has ascended from an actual physical presence to being the Voice of God. He narrates the beginning of the fairytale…but then disappears until the end. Rupert Everett also has a wonderful moment guaranteed to surprise the audience which I will not ruin here. The best subversive visual gag though comes when our own David Kelly, as the decrepit guard of The Hole in the Wall between England and Sturmhold, prevents the naïve Tristan (Charlie Cox) from crossing through the portal with some nifty kung-fu moves.

Stardust is a picaresque romp following the adventures of Tristan and Yvaine (Claire Danes) so it’s no surprise that the film’s quality should vary greatly depending on who they’ve fallen in with. What is surprising is that while Michelle Pfeiffer’s wicked witch Lamia is pursuing them the film is dull but when Robert De Niro pops up things take off. De Niro plays the ‘ruthless’ Captain Shakespeare, whose flying pirates capture lightning and sell it by the bottle to their fence Ricky Gervais. Gervais is a hoot in his cameo but De Niro is even better as the camp captain made miserable by having to keep up his reputation even though he likes music, fashion and art much more. The film becomes more fun at this point because it trades violence for romance. Gaiman’s original fairytale was for adults and, while the ghostly Greek chorus of murdered princes of Sturmhold is a sporadically funny motif, the fratricidal rampage of Mark Strong’s Prince Septimus is far too violent for children.

The heart of the film is the growing relationship between Tristan and Yvaine. Stars shine but they can’t do it with a broken heart and as Yvaine’s sadness melts away in her growing love for Tristan she starts to glow again, in a particularly sweet CGI effect. A CGI effect of delicious nastiness is the way that each spell Pfeiffer casts ages her. Vaughn treats us to the diverting spectacle of a dead body sword-fighting against Tristan courtesy of some voodoo doll magic and the implacable logic of a fairytale comes into force with a vengeance at the end. Stardust though is far too long at over two hours, and while the finale is swooningly romantic and packs a feel good oomph, the film itself hasn’t been magical enough to earn the plaudits its denouement cries out for.

3/5

Any Other Business: Part XXXI

What is one to do with thoughts that are far too long for Twitter but not nearly long enough for a proper blog post? Why round them up and turn them into a thirty-first portmanteau post on television of course!

When you play the game of thrones, you watch or you win

I gave up on Game of Thrones after suffering thru 3 seasons. I was unwilling to continue torturing myself to ‘keep up to date with pop culture’. So I’m quite amused at everyone now having a LOST-style meltdown that the show wasted their time for 8 years. In retrospect it was probably insane of HBO to greenlight a TV show based on an ongoing book series that the author clearly had no interest in finishing. I’ve long been comparing George RR Martin to a stand-up comic who 10 minutes into a 12 minute shaggy dog story loses interest and wanders off stage, leaving the poor fools in the audience outraged that he just wasted 10 minutes of their time, and even more outraged when Neil Gaiman walks by to chastise them for feeling outraged that his good friend George wasted their time – he doesn’t owe anybody the punchline to a shaggy dog story.

But now I wonder if there was another more conniving strand to his literary inaction. By refusing to finish writing the books Martin has got the poor saps Benioff & Weiss to test an ending for him to gauge reaction to it. So now Martin just has to say his books would have done it all … differently, and continue to never finish them, but do more fun things like attend sports events and fan conventions like a conquering hero, and he’ll go to his grave with that taunt irrefutable. When did he realise that by not finishing he can eternally be better than the TV ending without ever having to actually furnish his ending?

Jazz Trances, real and fictional

Happening across The Mighty Boosh late at night the other week I suddenly remembered Howard Moon’s jazz trance, something which I saw just a few years prior to a 2011 live episode of Later with Jools Holland featuring a bona fide jazz trance. Jools was trying in his inimitably (and endearing) ramshackle way to keep the show on track for time given that Newsnight was prepping to air live too once his show stopped. And standing waiting in the shadows was a 40 piece choir ready to join Elbow in a rendition of a meisterwerk, but unfortunately he’d put on a jazz band led by an aged jazz legend just before, and all four of them had gone into a proper eyes closed working out their melodies by feel jazz trance. The camera captured a nervous looking Jools baffled at how to get them to stop as he couldn’t make eye contact with any of the players: a moment of panic that reduced Dad and I to helpless laughter. At last one musician opened his eyes and Jools was able to flag him down. He stopped. And then another musician opened his eyes wondering why he’d stopped, and saw, and stopped too. Only for our man, the legend, to misinterpret this, in his jazz trance, as his merry men waiting on him to change key, which he duly did, until the third musician stopped, and then he opened his eyes, and lo, the jazz trance was broken. And a mightily relieved Jools rushed across to stop it starting up again and hurried Elbow and their 40 piece choir into action.

ADIFF: Immersive Stories

The final line-up and schedule has been released for the Immersive Stories: Virtual Reality Conference & Exhibition, which takes place at the Round Room in the Mansion House, Dublin on 24^th & 25^th February 2018 as part of the Audi Dublin International Film Festival.

The Immersive Stories Conference brings pioneering international and Irish thought leaders on Virtual and Augmented Reality to Dublin to chart new ways of storytelling on immersive platforms; developments that are already revolutionising the way we produce and consume entertainment.

The finalised line-up includes Resh Sidhu, Creative Director of Two Species VR; Ian Bowie, Experience Designer at the ILMxLAB and Lead Designer on STAR WARS: SECRETS OF THE EMPIRE; Curtis Hickman: Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of critically-acclaimed immersive entertainment company TheVOID; Sol Rogers, CEO & Founder, REWIND; Colum Slevin, Head of Experiences at Oculus VR; Andrew Melchior, Founder of 3^rd Space Agency and Executive Producer of Björk Digital; Davor Krvavac, Executive Creative Director at B-Reel London, (creators of the Gorrilaz AR app), and many more. The Immersive Stories Conference and Exhibition is curated by Eoghan Cunneen, a Senior Software Engineer at Lucasfilm Ltd.

Immersive Stories –  Exhibition: Running alongside the conference, this is a chance for both attendees and the general public to experience some of the best Virtual and Augmented Reality experiences including BladeRunner 2049: Memory Lab; a showcase of Gorrilaz’s multiplatform campaign that accompanied the Humanz album; Björk’s VR music video NotGet that was showcased at MoMA and Somerset House; The Guardian’s detective documentary Crime Scene; Fable Studio’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Wolves in the Walls; and a selection of VR content from RTÉ.

Receiving its World Premiere, Pink Kong Studio’s short VR film Aurora, that was specially commissioned by ADIFF, Audi Ireland and Screen Training Ireland,  will be screened at the exhibition and will be accompanied by a case study at the conference.

Immersive Stories: Conference runs 9am-5pm across 24^th & 25^th Feb.
Immersive Stories: Exhibition runs at 6pm & 8pm on both 24^th & 25^th Feb.

Tickets for the Immersive Stories Conference (€95/€55 Concs, including exhibition & lunch) and tickets for the Exhibition (€10) available at www.diff.ie or 01 687 7974.

ADIFF 2018

The full ADIFF 2018 programme has finally been revealed and Bill Pullman, Vanessa Redgrave, Paul Schrader, Cillian Murphy, Barry Keoghan, Lance Daly, Nora Twomey, Paddy Considine, Sandy Powell, and Lynne Ramsay will all be coming to Dublin.  There will be seven World Premieres and a total of over 100 features screened, nearly all receiving their Irish Premiere. Tickets are released for sale at www.diff.ie from 7 pm today and the Box Office is open at 12 East Essex Street (+353 (0) 1 6877974) from 10 am 25^thJan.

Gráinne Humphreys, Festival Director, says “This year’s ADIFF programme is a line-up of films that are rich, exciting and wonderful. They reflect the truly global culture of film-making as well as celebrating the strength and depth of Irish film talent. It’s a selection that aims to inspire and entertain film lovers of every age and taste, including the youngest at Fantastic Flix. Our special guests include some of the finest performers and film-makers in the world and I’m particularly delighted to be welcoming our Volta Award recipients, Paul Schrader and Vanessa Redgrave to Dublin. Alongside the very best of new Irish and international cinema, there are echoes of film history in our silent film presentations and Cedric Gibbons Season, and an amazing glimpse of the future at the Immersive Stories: Conference and Exhibition, which brings the pioneers of virtual and augmented reality creation to Dublin.”

Some strands of the programme have already been covered in previous posts so let’s concentrate on what’s new.

Galas and Special Presentations
The Opening Gala will be the Irish Premiere of Black 47, the most hotly-anticipated Irish film of the year. Lance Daly directs this gripping thriller set during the Famine. Lance Daly and a selection of the cast including James Frecheville, Barry Keoghan, Moe Dunford, and Stephen Rea will attend. One of Hollywood’s finest, Bill Pullman, attends the festival for the Irish Premiere of his new Western The Ballad of Lefty Brown, a superb addition to his distinguished body of cinematic work stretching back three decades. Amongst cinema’s most distinctive filmmakers, Lynne Ramsay (We Need to Talk About Kevin, Morvern Callar) visits for the Special Presentation of her Cannes prize-winning thriller You Were Never Really Here. Irish-Spanish co-production, Muse, is a seductive supernatural thriller that was both set and shot in Dublin and will screen as a Special Presentation. Irish director Nora Twomey will attend the long-awaited Irish Premiere Special Presentation of her animated drama The Breadwinner, which has been Oscar-nominated in the Best Animated Feature category for 2018. From Kilkenny’s Cartoon Saloon, this is a powerful story of an Afghan girl passing as a boy to work to help her family survive. Oscar-winning actress Vanessa Redgrave will receive one of the two 2018 ADIFF Volta Awards, the festival’s most prestigious award, for her lifetime of achievement in cinema at the Irish Premiere of her passionate new documentary on the refugee crisis, Sea Sorrow. Her co-director and son Carlo Nero will also attend. Paul Schrader will also receive a Volta Award and is honoured for his extensive work as a director and screenwriter. Schrader’s acclaimed new film First Reformed starring Ethan Hawke will receive its Gala Irish Premiere at the festival. Schrader will also give an in-depth Public Talk and, as this year’s Guest Curator, will introduce three classic films that have inspired his work. Rounding off the festival with the ultimate in escapist cinema, ADIFF 2018’s Closing Gala is C’est La Vie. This funny, irreverent and charming French film is Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano’s follow-up to their box-office sensation The Intouchables and will leave festival audiences smiling until 2019.

Guest Highlights
The World Premiere of The Delinquent Season sees one of Ireland’s finest playwrights, Mark O’Rowe, make his debut as film director with a tale of two seemingly successful Dublin couples facing unexpected challenges. The stellar Irish cast includes Cillian Murphy and Eva Birthistle, both of whom will attend the premiere. Stacy Cochran will attend the World Premiere of her new film Write When You Get Work, a witty, knowing tale of success and excess on the Upper East Side, shot by Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Elswit (There Will Be Blood). Three-time Oscar-winning Costume Designer Sandy Powell will visit for two new films that showcase her talents. She will take part in a Q&A after Todd Hayne’s Wonderstruck and introduce John Cameron Mitchell’s How to Talk to Girls at Parties. One of Ireland’s most provocative and challenging film artists, director Alan Gilsenan attends the World Premiere of his visceral and highly-charged new film, The Meeting. Actor/Director Paddy Considine visits the festival for the screening of his second feature as director Journeyman, a raw, powerful boxing drama in which Considine delivers an unforgettable performance. Canadian director Kathleen Hepburn attends the festival for her intimate portrait of grief and independence Never Steady, Never Still. Director Marc Meyers will attend the screening of My Friend Dahmer, a chilling look at the youth of real-life serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

Irish Film and Talent
ADIFF 2018 is packed with Irish talent, with more homegrown highlights with directors in attendance including Irish Premieres of Aoife McArdle’s incendiary debut, Kissing Candice, and Good Favour, the third feature from Rebecca Daly which sees a religious community give shelter to an enigmatic outsider. Director David Freyne will attend the Irish Premiere of his fiendishly clever take on the zombie film, The Cured. Andrew Quirke’s hilarious Dublin double-act hits the big screen with the World Premiere of Damo & Ivor: The Movie.

Crime and Law
French actor-turned-director Xavier Legrand will attend his dazzling debut, Custody, about a court decision that tears a family apart.  Director/co-writer Yves Hinant and his co-writer Jean Libon will attend the screening of So Help Me God, a documentary following the unconventional and sometimes outrageous Belgian judge Anne Gruwez. Warwick Thornton follows his critically-acclaimed Samson & Delilah with an outback Western, Sweet Country. Director Jean-François Hensgens and armed robber-turned-filmmaker François Troukens attend the festival with their slick heist thriller Tueurs/Above the Law. Matthias Heeder attends the screening of Pre-Crime, a documentary exploring ‘protective policing’, a sci-fi staple that is becoming all too real. John McBratney, retired Senior Counsel will chair a special panel discussion on the Crime and Law strand, which also includes The Ciambra, Racer and the Jailbird, The Line, The Meeting and Have a Nice Day.

International Programme
French-language films include Xavier Beauvois’ The Guardians, Laurent Cantet’s The Workshop, Xavier Giannoli’s Apparition and Coralie Fargaet’s Revenge. The wider international selection includes representation from Japan (The Third Murder), Australia (Sweet Country), Indonesia (Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts), Israel (Foxtrot), Ecuador (Yasuni Man), Germany (Casting, In the Fade),Romania (Ana, Mon Amour), Norway (What Will People Say), Argentina (Zama), and Iran (Israfil). The contemporary cinema of Hong Kong is explored in a five-film season, with the support of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office Belgium, that includes a visit from Angie Chen, director of I’ve Got the Blues. The season will also feature intimate war drama Our Time Will Come, the mysterious crime drama Somewhere Beyond the Mist, the offbeat and tranquil coming-of-age drama The White Girl, and dynamic action thriller Paradox. Actress Anna Krotoska will attend the screening of Polish character-driven psychological thriller Tower: A Bright Day. Selected to celebrate the centenary of Polish Independence, there is a rare chance to see Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s 1977 award-winning Death of the President. Highlights from across the Atlantic include sneak previews of Jennifer Lawrence in Red Sparrow, Wes Anderson’s new animation Isle of Dogs, and Liam Neeson in Watergate drama Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House. British selections include Sebastían Lelio’s Disobedience with Rachel McAdams and Rachel Weisz; Sheila Hancock in Simon Hunter’s Edie; and Emily Mortimer and Bill Nighy in Isabel Coixet’s The Bookshop. Irish rising star Jessie Buckley gives a breakthrough film performance in writer/director Michael Pearce’s dark and delicious new British film Beast. English-language international documentaries include an intimate look at Leon Vitali’s life as Stanley Kubrick’s right hand man in Film-worker, the unexpected treat of a second visit to the Beales of Grey Gardens in That Summer, the swinging sixties narrated by Michael Caine in That Generation, and a magical time capsule of found footage in Bill Morrison’s Dawson City: Frozen Time.

Cedric Gibbons
Dublin-born Cedric Gibbons was the most successful art director in the history of cinema, responsible for MGM’s reputation as Hollywood’s number one ‘dream factory’. ADIFF 2018 celebrates his work with the Cedric Gibbons Retrospective featuring The Big Parade, Dinner at Eight, Grand Hotel, and An American in Paris, as well as a one-day conference at NCAD Gallery from 2^nd March. An exhibition will run at the NCAD Gallery 2^nd-31^st March.

Awards
Film-goers themselves will select their favourite film of the Festival with the AUDI-ence award. The winning film-makers will be flown to the Berlin International Film Festival in 2019 where they will enjoy a true VIP Audi experience. This year’s ADIFF Discovery Award nominees are a testament to the strength of and depth of the new generation of film talent making their mark in a competitive but thriving industry. The nominees are actors Ryan Lincoln (Kissing Candice), Jessie Buckley (Beast), Rory Fleck Byrne (Inbox), Actors/Directors/Writers TJ O’Grady Peyton (Wave) and Liz Quinn (The Date), Director/Cinematographers Rua Meegan & Trevor Whelan (both Bardalo II: A Life of Waste); directors Mia Mullarkey (Mother & Baby), Louise Bagnall (Late Afternoon); and producer Sharon Cronin (Acorn).

Special Events, Shorts and the Surprise Film
One of the most popular and revered slots in the programme, the identity of the Just Eat Surprise Film is a tightly-guarded secret known only to the Festival Director but it always rewards the bold and the brave. The festival has expanded its ADIFF Shorts selections to four programmes of the best short films from Ireland and around the world, featuring both established talent and the next generation of film-makers cutting their teeth. The meeting point between audiences, critics, talent and industry that the festival provides extends far beyond the cinema screen in the ADIFF Special Events. This year’s events will include a Writers’ Masterclass with Laurence Coriat and an Audiences Panel with Ben Luxford, Head of UK Audiences at the British Film Institute. After the success of last year’s exhibition capturing Irish talent, ADIFF will present the second exhibition by Hugh O’Conor featuring intimate portraits of his colleagues in the Irish film industry.

Check out the new ADIFF Podcast at http://bit.ly/2DzwFt3

So, here’s the full ADIFF 2018 schedule, notably lacking any shows in the Savoy; with the Odeon Point and Cineworld 17 stepping into the vacuum left by Savoy 1’s dismemberment – of which more soon.

Wednesday 21^st February
21.00 Black 47   Cineworld 17
Opening Gala

Thursday 22^nd February
Fantastic Flix -11.00 My Neighbour Totoro   Lighthouse 1
14.00 Yasuni Man   Lighthouse 3
18.00 First Reformed  Cineworld 9 
Paul Schrader in attendance
18.00 Our Time Will Come   Lighthouse 3
18.30 Death of the President   Lighthouse 1
20.00 The Breadwinner   Cineworld 17
Featuring Q&A with Nora Twomey
20.30 Somewhere Beyond The Mist   Lighthouse 3
20.45 Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House   Cineworld 9

Friday 23^rd February
14.00 Pickpocket   Lighthouse 1
Introduction by Paul Schrader
16.00 Performance   Lighthouse 1
Introduction by Paul Schrader
16.00 The White Girl   Lighthouse 3
18.15 Beast   Cineworld 9
18.15 Never Steady, Never Still   Lighthouse 1
In attendance: Kathleen Hepburn
18.30 I’ve Got the Blues   Lighthouse 3
In attendance: Angie Chen
20.45 In the Fade   Lighthouse 1
21.00 Paradox   Lighthouse 3
22.45 Revenge   Lighthouse 1

Saturday 24^th February
09.00 Immersive Stories Conference   Round Room, Mansion House
11.00 Dawson City: Frozen Time   Lighthouse 1
12.00 Film Festivals Programmers Speed Dating & Networking Session   Lighthouse Bar
14.00 ADIFF Shorts 1   Lighthouse 3
14.00 An Autumn Afternoon   Lighthouse 1
Introduction by Paul Schrader
16.15 Sweet Country   Lighthouse 1
16.30 That Summer   Lighthouse 3
16.30 The Divine Order   Cineworld 9
18.00 Immersive Stories Exhibition   Round Room, Mansion House
18.15 The Line   Lighthouse 3
18.30 The Lonely Battle of Thomas Reid   Lighthouse 1
Film-maker in attendance
18.45 The Guardians   Cineworld 9
20.00 Immersive Stories Exhibition   Round Room, Mansion House
20.00 The Ballad of Lefty Brown Cineworld 17
In attendance: Bill Pullman
20.30 The Ciambra   Lighthouse 3
20.30 Tueurs / Above the Law   Lighthouse 1
In attendance: François Troukens, Jean-François Hensgens
20.50 Write When You Get Work   Cineworld 9
Stacy Cochran in attendance

Sunday 25^th February
09.00 Immersive Stories Conference   Round Room, Mansion House
11.00 Filmworker   Lighthouse 1
13.00 ADIFF Shorts 2   Lighthouse 1
14.00 Lots of Kids, a Monkey and a Castle   Lighthouse 3
14.00 The Bookshop   Cineworld 9
15.30 What Will People Say   Lighthouse 1
16.15 Wonderful Losers: A Different World   Lighthouse 3
Film-maker in attendance
18.00 Immersive Stories Exhibition   Round Room, Mansion House
18.00 Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts   Cineworld 9
18.00 Thirst Street   Lighthouse 3
In attendance: Nathan Silver
18.30 Behind the Door   Lighthouse 1
Musical accompaniment: Stephen Horne
20.00 Immersive Stories Exhibition   Round Room, Mansion House
20.10 The Workshop   Lighthouse 2
20.15 The Cured   Lighthouse 1
David Freyne in attendance

Monday 26^th February
13.30 The Big Parade   IFI
17.00 Casting   Pavilion Theatre
18.10 Madame   Cineworld 9
18.15 Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts   Lighthouse 3
18.15 The Rider   Lighthouse 1
18.30 The Science of Ghosts   IFI
Film-maker in attendance
20.00 The Divine Order   Pavilion Theatre
20.30 ADIFF Shorts 3   Lighthouse 3
20.30 Tower: A Bright Day   Cineworld 9
20.30 You Were Never Really Here   Lighthouse 1
In attendance: Lynne Ramsay

Tuesday 27^th February
13.30 Dinner At Eight   IFI
18.10 The Summit   Lighthouse 1
18.15 My Generation   Cineworld 9
18.30 Pre-Crime   Lighthouse 3
In attendance: Matthias Heeder
18.30 Phantom Islands   IFI
Film-maker in attendance
20.30 Good Favour   Lighthouse 1
Filmmaker in attendance
20.45 Israfil   Lighthouse 3

Wednesday 28^th February
13.30 Grand Hotel   IFI
16.00 ADIFF Shorts 4   Lighthouse 2
Featuring ADIFF Awards presentation
17.50 Twilight   Lighthouse 2
In attendance: Pat Collins
Fantastic Flix – 18.15 Lean On Pete   Cineworld 9
18.30 Custody   Lighthouse 1
In attendance: Xavier Legrand
18.30 Isle of Dogs   Cineworld 17
18.45 While You Live, Shine   Lighthouse 2
In attendance: Paul Duane
20.30 Red Sparrow   Cineworld 17
20.45 Muse   Lighthouse 1
20.45 Zama   Lighthouse 3
20.45 Thoroughbreds   Cineworld 9

Thursday 1^st March
French Producer’s Summit   The Digital Hub
10.00 Careers Day   IFI
Fantastic Flix – 10.00 Cloudboy   Omniplex Rathmines
Fantastic Flix – 13.00 At Eye Level   Movies@Dundrum
16.00 Catch the Wind   Lighthouse 1
18.10 Wonderstruck   Cineworld 9
Film-maker in attendance
18.15 Disobedience   Lighthouse 1
18.15 The Image You Missed   Lighthouse 2
In attendance: Donal Foreman
20.30 Ana, Mon Amour   Lighthouse 3
20.30 Foxtrot   Lighthouse 1
20.45 Apparition / L’Apparition   Cineworld 9

Friday 2^nd March
Fantastic Flix – 10.00 Vampirina   Lighthouse 3
Film-maker in attendance
Fantastic Flix – 11.00 Rum 213    Omniplex Rathmines
In attendance: Wilma Lundgren
Fantastic Flix – 11.30 Cloudboy   Lighthouse 3
Fantastic Flix – 12.30 Liyana   Movies@Dundrum
13.30 An American in Paris   IFI
14.00 Writers’ Workshop Laurence Coriat   Brooks Hotel Cinema
18.10 Damo & Ivor: The Movie   Cineworld 17
Film-maker in attendance
In attendance: Rob Burke, Ronan Burke & Cast
18.10 The Other Side of Everything   Lighthouse 3
18.15 The Camino Voyage   IFI
In attendance: Dónal Ó Céilleachair
18.15 Hannah   Light House 1
20.30 Have a Nice Day   Lighthouse 3
20.30 The Third Murder   Cineworld 9
20.45 Kissing Candice   Lighthouse 1
In attendance: Aoife McArdle

Saturday 3^rd March
Fantastic Flix -11.00 Fantastic Flix Shorts Omniplex   Rathmines / Lighthouse 3
Fantastic Flix -11.00 Mary and the Witch’s Flower   Lighthouse 1
12.00 Judicial Review: Law on Film
13.15 So Help Me God   Lighthouse 1
In attendance: Yves Hinant, Jean Libon
13.50 Casting   Lighthouse 3
14.00 Catalyst Case Study – Kissing Candice   Bow St Academy
15.45 The Meeting   Lighthouse 1
16.00 Sea Sorrow   Cineworld 17
In attendance: Vanessa Redgrave and Carlo Nero

16.00 How to Talk to Girls At Parties   Lighthouse 3
Sandy Powell in attendance
18.10 Sicilian Ghost Story   Cineworld 9
18.15 A Mother Brings Her Son to Be Shot   Lighthouse 1
In attendance: Sinéad O’Shea
18.30 Journeyman   Lighthouse 2
Film-maker in attendance
20.30 The Delinquent Season   Lighthouse 1
Mark O’Rowe, Cillian Murphy, and Eva Birthistle in attendance
20.45 A Prayer Before Dawn   Cineworld 9

Sunday 4^th March
Fantastic Flix -11.00 The Big Bad Fox & Other Tales   Light House 1
In attendance: Patrick Imbert
12.00 Edie   Light House 3
12.00 Vanessa Redgrave Volta Presentation   The Gate
13.30 Racer and the Jailbird   Cineworld 9
14.00 The Italian Straw Hat (The Horse Ate the Hat)   Light House 1
Musical accompaniment: Günter A. Buchwald, Matthew Jacobson, Nick Roth, Derek Whyte
16.10 My Friend Dahmer   Cineworld 9
16.15 A Gentle Creature   Light House 1
17.00 Just Eat Surprise Film   Odeon Point
Featuring special presentation
19.00 Under the Tree   Light House 1
20.00 C’est La Vie   Cineworld 17
Closing Gala

Exhibitions:
Wednesday 21^st February – Sunday 4^th March
Celebrating Irish Talent Exhibition   Powerscourt Town Centre

Friday 2^nd March – Saturday 31^st March
Cedric Gibbons Exhibition   NCAD Galway

Wednesday 21^st February – Sunday 4^th March
Exhibition: Brown Bag Films Behind the Scenes   Lighthouse

Wednesday 21^st February – Sunday 4^th March
NCAD Exhibition   Lighthouse