Film review:

The sun has set on another Galway Film Fleadh. The country may be saturated with festivals at this time of year, but the long-running Fleadh remains one of the major highlights in the arts calendar.

This year the event premiered the two biggest animation films of the year — Oscar-nominated Irish film Song of the Sea and Pixar’s latest venture, Inside Out.

The directors of each, Tomm Moore and Pete Docter respectively, were among the Fleadh’s guests, as were Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf and American actor John C Reilly.

As ever, the Fleadh played host to a range of new Irish films, among them Mark Noonan’s You’re Ugly Too, starring Aiden Gillen, which picked up best first Irish film award, and Paul Mercier’s Pursuit, an enjoyably mad spin on the ancient myth of Diarmuid and Gráinne which boasted a stellar cast, including Ruth Bradley, Liam Cunningham, Owen Roe, and a cameo from Brendan Gleeson.

Without doubt, however, the most joyously received film this year was My Name Is Emily, the debut feature from writer-director Simon Fitzmaurice.

The latter is a sufferer of motor neurone disease who, despite the enormously debilitating disease, overcame the odds to direct the film, following a successful crowd-funding drive. The director’s Q&A with Fleadh director Gar O’Brien was a very moving and dignified affair.

While Fitzmaurice’s condition inevitably elicits sympathy, My Name is Emily works entirely on its own terms. The narrative centres on a sprite-like young girl (Evanna Lynch) and her besotted schoolmate (George Webster) as they trek to Donegal in a vintage yellow Volkswagen Beetle to break her father (Michael Smiley) out of a psychiatric facility.

The three leads are all charming, and, despite the temptations of the road movie formula, Fitzmaurice avoids veering into sentimentality while nevertheless serving up a tale of warmth and insight. The film is also distinguished by stunning cinematography from distinguished DOP Seamus Deasy, which quite rightly saw the latter pick up one of the festival’s awards.