If a silent film falls in the woods and there’s nobody there to hear it…hmm, clearly this joke is going nowhere. You could go somewhere, though. You could hop down to Greystones for the Killruddery Film Festival which kicks off this Thursday and runs until Sunday and you could have yourself a whisper of a good time with silent films, the beautiful 17th century Killruddery House and Gardens and some masterpieces of forgotten Irish cinema combining to offer up what sounds like it’s going to be a great weekend’s entertainment.
We bloody love the festival trailer by the way, take a look:
The third year of the festival kicks off this Thursday night with a drinks reception at 7.30pm followed by ‘The O’Kalem’s in Ireland’ at 8.15pm. If you don’t know, and sure why would you, the O’Kalem film company was the first to produce fiction films in Ireland and the documentary will include two of their originals ‘The Lad from Old Ireland’ and ‘Come Back to Erin’ - one of which was only recently rediscovered and hasn’t been seen in a century!
Friday will seen screenings of La Roue, and Academy Award winners White Shadows in the South Seas and Seventh Heaven while Saturday’s highlights include Lost Children’s Films from the Irish Archive at 12.30pm and The Garden of Eden at 6.15pm. Sunday features a lecture by Ken Brownlow (the Irish in Early Hollywood) at 12.30pm, Camille is showing at 4pm and the festival rounds off with ‘A 19th Century Magic Lantern Spectacular’ happening over at the Mermaid Arts Centre in Bray.
The full line up of events is here: http://killrudderyarts.com/filmfestival/?page_id=953 see what takes your fancy and if you’re interested in being transported back in time, for one weekend only, the DART can get you there. Next stop 1929 (the year of the first ever Academy Awards dontcha know). Whoop!
I’ve already got my tickets. Well worth a visit. Also, although the address says Greystones its actually just outside of Bray.