Cork short film festival dares to be different

NOW in its third year, the Dare Media Underground Short Film Festival, in Cork, runs from Aug 10-17.

The event was set up by filmmaker, Darren O’Mahony, who was frustrated by film festivals.

“I wanted to do something a little bit different. This festival is more film-maker-oriented. Often, you can study film for three or four years in college, where you’ll be taught how to make films. But you’re never really told how to get your films screened. When I was starting out, I had no clue who to talk to. Big festivals can be a bit intimidating. They get thousands of entries, but you never hear back whether you’ve got in or not.”

A graduate of film studies at St John’s Central College, O’Mahony says the film-festival market in Cork is crowded, with the inaugural Indie Cork festival in October, spearheaded by Mick Hannigan, formerly of the Cork International Film Festival. The latter is in November. The Fastnet Short Festival, in Schull, is in May.

“I wouldn’t necessarily say we’re competing with the other two film festivals in Cork City. They’re more in competition with each other. Because of our timing, last year we found that we had already screened half of the films shown later in the ‘Made in Cork’ section of the Cork International Film Festival.”

The Dare festival will be the first to screen films in the Kino since it reopened. The festival is also screening at the Gate Cinema, Camden Palace, the Clarion Hotel and the Cork Vision Centre. Ninety films will be screened, from 11 countries. The screenings include a Spanish programme.

“I don’t know how it happened, but there are a number of Spanish distribution companies that send us short films ever year. We get between 20 and 30 films from them.

“They’re of really good quality and, rather than condense them down into the international programme, we decided to give them their own section. It has proved to be very popular. We can learn something from these Spanish films.”

The festival will shine a spotlight on two of Cork’s up and coming filmmakers, the award-winning Shaun O’Connor, and Mark Cogan. Selections of their films will screen at the Gate Cinema on Aug 15.

Different genres will be shown in programmes that include drama, documentary and experimental, as well as sci-fi, comedy and horror. There will be a free ‘walk-in’ cinema with two days of screenings of previous years’ films, at the Cork Vision Centre. As well as screenings, there will be talks and workshops given by film-industry professionals.

O’Mahony says the film community in Cork is growing. “Film is a tough area to get into. Most of my classmates from film college are not in film anymore. But, these days, more and more people that graduate in film tend to stay in it.

“It has become a lot cheaper to make films. The technology has changed. When I was going to college, you’d pay about €8,000 for a good camera. Now, you can pick one up for €1,000 or less. Editing software is still expensive, but there are more and more free versions, making it accessible to everybody.”

The budget for the festival is €5,000. “We have raised €2,880 through Fund It. We’re being given a little bit of money by City Hall this year. Crowd-funding, through Fund It, is really big at the moment. There are various rewards given to people, depending on the amount of money they donate.”

You can visit the website for more information here.