While most across the country were wearing giant felt hats, pinning lumps of dying foliage to their lapels and waiting for barmen to draw wonky shamrocks in their pints, those cultured folks down in Dingle, County Kerry were celebrating yesterday’s St Patrick’s Day with a considerably more arty affair. The Dingle Film Festival kicked off last night and will run for the next 3 days and will see the small fishing village play host to a plethora of Hollywood royalty. Now into its fifth year the festival is getting a reputation as the ‘film makers film festival’ as it offers unparrallelled access to some of cinema’s hottest actors and directors. In the past the town has welcomed such esteemed celebratries as Cillain Murphy, Saoirse Ronan, Gabrielle Byrne, Stephen Frears, Jim Sheridan and Sir Alan Parker.
This year should be no different as once again festival director Maurice Galway has managed to programme yet another diverse schedule of films under the banner theme of ‘Being Here.’ Many of the films that are being shown deal specifically with places around the world such as the documentary about the Khmer Rouge regime Enemies Of The People or the Ocar nominated Gasland.
Tonight will see the Gregory Peck Award given to French maestro Jean-Jacques Beineix before a showing of his cult classic Betty Blue. Tomorrow a screening of Dreaming The Quiet Man (a documentary narrated by former Gregory Peck Award winner Gabrielle Byrne about the making of The Quiet Man) will be attended by screen icon Maureen O’Hara. And then on Sunday the final film of the festival Treacle Jr. will be followed by a Q&A session with The Wire star Aiden Gillen. On top of this there will be many feature films and shorts shown in various locations across the town, many directing and writing seminars to attend, as well as the infamous festival club nights where you can rub shoulders with the stars themselves.
Last night however, it was all about the premiere of a documentary about the festival itself. We Will Always Have Dingle was filmed last year using RED technology cameras. It is a humorous look at the trails and tribulations of setting up Europe’s most westerly film festival. It uses ordinary folk from the town to pastiche famous movie scenes (or ‘Dingle-ize them’ as the film makers refer to it) which even includes a cameo from this very Culchie himself! (see pic below) So if you are planning on a break away this weekend and fancy getting cultured in Kerry, we’d recommend The Dingle Film Festival as Far & Away* the best choice out there.
For more information and ticket booking check out: http://www.dinglefilmfestival.com/
*(Massive apologies for this pun!)
