Back for their 7th year, the Irish Film Festival London presents Ireland’s latest mainstream and independent films over 5 days across London with exclusive previews, panel discussions and director’s Q&As.
IFFL 2017 opens with The Drummer and the Keeper, directed by Nick Kelly, telling the touching story of an unlikely friendship that develops between the bipolar drummer of a rock band and an institutionalised teen suffering from Asperger’s syndrome.
The closing film is The Farthest, a stunning, award-winning documentary from Emer Reynolds, about the men and women who built the Voyager spaceships – one of humankind’s greatest achievements.
IFFL 2017 celebrates women filmmakers, with four of Ireland’s finest female directors engaged in screenings and discussions. The Breadwinner (directed by Nora Twomey and executive produced by Angelina Jolie) and The Farthest (directed by Emer Reynolds) are both being screened at the festival with Q&As (Sunday 3rd December). Regent Street’s private screening on Friday 1st December of a stunning upcoming feature is directed by one of Ireland’s rising female directors. Aisling Walsh (Maudie) joins the line-up of the festival’s Female Focus Forum along with Celine Haddad (Irish Film Board), Roisin Geraghty (GAZE), Aoife McCardle (Kissing Candice) and Anne Marie Naughton (Women in Film and Television Ireland / WFT.i) (Thursday 30th November).
There will also be a panel discussion on Irish Screen Industries, the UK and Brexit, featuring speakers from the Irish Film Board, the BFI, Ateliers du Cinéma Européen (ACE), and Northern Ireland Screen discussing how Brexit could affect the Irish Film and TV industries (Thursday 30th November).
Further feature film screenings include Maze by Stephen Burke, inspired by the true events of the infamous 1983 prison breakout of 38 IRA prisoners from HMP, which was to become the biggest prison escape in Europe since World War II (Friday 1st December); Song of Granite from acclaimed director Pat Collins, who brings the dramatic life story of legendary sean-nós singer Joe Heaney to the screen with in audacious exploration of the man and his music (Saturday 2nd December); The Secret Scripture, Jim Sheridan’s heart-wrenching tale of a woman who resides in a psychiatric hospital recounting her youth of romance, obsession and chaos, starring Rooney Mara, Jack Reynor, Aidan Turner, Vanessa Redgrave and Pauline McLynn (Saturday 2nd December); and In The Name Of Peace: John Hume in America, Maurice Fitzpatrick’s documentary about John Hume who won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1998 as well as the Martin Luther King Award and the Gandhi Peace Prize, the only person to have been awarded all three. Narrated by Liam Neeson and featuring interviews with presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, as well as Irish leaders, U2’s Bono and Prime Ministers John Major and Tony Blair (Sunday 3rd December).
CinÉireann / November 2017 9
The Drummer & The Keeper
In The Name of Peace
MAZE