Cork Film Festival programme launched as event confirmed to take place next month
Nika McGuigan and Nora-Jane Noone in Wildfire, one of the Irish films
It may have hit pension age in a difficult year, but Cork International Film Festival is definitely going ahead next month. At the programme launch on Thursday, it was confirmed that the 65th year of the event will be a 'blended' festival, with both live and online screenings. Even if Covid restrictions escalate to prevent live screenings, the virtual side of the festival will continue as planned.
And while many may gripe about the current measures around coronavirus, one of the major events at the festival will remind of even more tumultuous times in Cork, when the city had curfews instead of lockdowns, and daily tragedies were the new normal amidst the struggle for independence. A 1920 Commemoration Gala will include a screening of 1926 film Irish Destiny, about an IRA man's part in the fight against the British, as well as newsreel footage of events such as the burning of Cork, and the funeral of Lord Mayor Terence MacSwiney.
