If there’s one festival more than any other that I’ve attended in recent years, it’s the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival. I went along to the launch event on Tuesday evening in Tripod to get the lowdown. Running from the 17th – 27th February, the 2011 programme features over 130 screenings plus a myriad of special events, panel discussions, public interviews and industry masterclasses. It’s a tribute to the hard work of the festival team and sponsors that they’ve managed to pull together one of the best lineups the festival has ever seen. It’s even more of an an achievement when funding for the arts has been hit as much as it has over the past year couple of years.
Launching the festival programme were award-winning actors Maura Tierney (ER, Liar Liar), who is currently in Dublin for rehearsals of God of Carnage at The Gate Theatre, and Charlene McKenna (Raw, Dorothy Mills). The festival opens strongly with a debut Gala Screening of Richard Ayoade’s (The IT Crowd, The Mighty Boosh) Submarine. Audiences will also be treated to a succession of Irish premieres, including: George Nolfi’s action-packed The Adjustment Bureau starring Matt Damon; Emilio Estevez’s second film starring Martin Sheen, The Way; the tense thriller Unknown, starring Liam Neeson and Aidan Quinn; Irish film Wake Wood from the legendary Hammer Films starring Aidan Gillen, Eva Birthistle and Timothy Spall; Ken Loach’s thriller Route Irish, set on the most dangerous road in Iraq, and his son Jim Loach’s first feature Oranges and Sunshine as well as two of the shortlisted films for best foreign language Oscar, Incendies (Canada) and Life, Above All (South Africa).
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