Corona Cork Film Festival

The 54th Corona Cork Film Festival is kicking off today 1 November in Cork for 7 days, ending next Sunday 8 November. In venues such as the Cork Opera House, Gate Cinema and Kino Cinema, this festival looks like it will have something for everyone with a huge variety of galas, features, shorts and documentaries to be enjoyed.

There are a huge number of elements to this festival, here’s a quick look at them:

Documentaries: in all, 33 documentaries will be shown over the week on subjects as diverse as Eddie Macken, the horse rider (Eddie Macken: True Legend) and ‘a searing indictment of the Coca Cola empire in ‘The Coca Cola Case’.

From 'The Coca-Cola Case' by German Gutierrez & Carmen Garcia

Made In Cork Short Films: a series of sixteen short films made in Cork, shown over two nights Monday 2 November and Tuesday 3 November in the Kino Cinema.

From 'Eddie Macken-True Legend' by Damon Winters

Irish Shorts: a collection of 32 Irish made short films being shown over Thursday, Friday and Saturday in the Cork Opera House and Kino Cinema.

Irish Film Board Shorts: two collections of shorts, one ‘Reality Bites‘ of short documentaries and non-fiction film-making, the other ‘Signatures‘ of live-action fiction pieces. Here’s a little taster of one of the pieces from ‘Signatures‘. Directed by Liam Galvin and called ‘Jericho’, it’s about a man recently widowed, unable to cope and suicidal until his imaginary childhood friends return to show him that the world is beautiful.

International Shorts: a series of 46 shorts to be shown over 7 afternoons (with a double showing on Thursday) in Kino Cinema.

Indian Focus: in association with the Enlighten Film Company of Mumbai, the Cork FIlm Festival present three programmes of award-winning Indian short films. The films showcase varying aspects of lifestyles, some unique to India, some universal.

From 'Printed Rainbow' by Gitanjali Rao

EuroCineMed-New Cinema: a selection of new features, documentaries and shorts from a programme focusing on new films from Mediterranean and Arab countries.

From 'Ajami' by Scandar Copti & Yaron Sahni

Outlook 2009: this is the nineteenth year of this festival of Irish and international gay filmmaking.

From 'Humpday' by Lynn Shelton

There is so much more going on at the film festival, showings, talks, master classes with world-renowned film makers, family programmes, awards. You should take a look at the entire programme on Corkfilmfest.org. You can book tickets on the film festival website, by calling 021-4271160 or by going to the Festival Box Office in the foyer of the Cork Opera House.