20 highlights to see at Cork Film Festival: Dramas, documentaries, family favourites...
Clockwise from left: Éanna Hardwicke in Saipan; the Kabin Krew in Gealtra; the cast of The Voice of Hind Rajab
Let’s start with the obvious. It’s Roy Keane. It’s Mick McCarthy. It’s 2002, Saipan. You know the story, but Glenn Leyburn and Lisa Barros D’Sa’s drama looks to dig a little deeper on the summer that essentially tarnished Ireland’s World Cup campaign. Éanna Hardwicke plays the former Ireland captain while Steve Coogan plays boss Mick McCarthy. Given the general grá for Keano in Cork, it's not surprising that the opening gala at the Everyman Theatre will be a packed.
Gabriel Byrne stars in John Boorman’s 1974 political thriller that teems with Cold War paranoia. Defence of The Realm sees Byrne play reporter Nick Mullen as he and Vernon Bayliss (Denholm Elliott) investigate the case of a British MP forced to resign from parliament after he is linked to a woman serving as an East German dignitary. The film will be followed by a conversation with Byrne and prolific Oscar-winning producer David Puttnam.
A big player at Cannes where it won the Grand Prix, Joachim Trier’s domestic drama is a platform for two of the best performances of the year in Stellan Skarsgård and Renate Reinsve as father and daughter trying desperately to reconcile despite the matriarch’s past follies. Another international big hitter you won’t regret seeing on the big screen at CIFF.
After garnered him career-changing reviews, Brendan Canty returns to the Northside of Cork to examine the Kabin Studio and its creatives as they go on a journey of self-discovery through the Irish language. The documentary will be followed by a Q&A.
Richard Linklater’s ode to the French New Wave puts its finger exactly on the moment when the movement burst into life. Godard’s classic - which will screen alongside - reinvented cool. Linklater’s making-of may have recaptured some of that magic.
The Palme d’Or winner at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival is about to make waves on the Lee. Prolific Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi brings us a harrowing tale about a man who believes he’s found his former torturer and acts before thinking only to be faced with uncertainty and a moral dilemma. It’s sure to be one of the festival’s very best.
finds legendary lyricist Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) on the opening night of ground-breaking musical Hart is bitter, drunk and in need of a good old-fashioned squabble. Who better to have it with than his former creative partner and composer Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott), fresh off the success and applause of the new hit play.
Dogs are just as welcome as their owners for this one, so pop along with your pup to a special screening of the 1955 Disney animated classic – also celebrating its 70th anniversary! In case your mind needed refreshing, Lady is the adorable tale of two dogs from opposite sides of the tracks who fall in love in a quaint New England town in 1909. Hearts will melt.
In what might be the most urgent film at this year’s festival, tells the devastating true story of the titular seven-year-old Palestinian girl trapped in a car under Israeli fire and the first responder trying desperately to save her life.
When his daughter goes missing at a rave, Luis and his son Esteban traverse the Moroccan desert to find their beloved before it is too late. Olivér Laxe’s thriller has been called disturbing, nerve-wracking and unforgettable by critics.
One of the more hotly anticipated international selections at this year’s soiree, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s follow-up to looks to be just as politically relevant as its predecessor. Wagner Moura has received universal praise (and a Cannes Best Actor award) for his performance as university professor Marcelo, a man on the run from political persecution in 1977 Brazil.
Set at the end of the Spanish Civil War, Francisco Franco invites his fellow generals for a victory dinner at his home. However, the Republican chefs in the kitchen may have plans to spoil the Fascists night. Part satire, part kitchen drama, it’s being served alongside wine pairings at Plugd. A feast for both palate and politics.
CIFF returns with another beautiful fusion of image and sound. Patrick Trehy’s new film makes its world premiere accompanied by a live musical performance from composer John O’Brien. Trehy’s historical fantasy finds an amnesiac clown exiled to Ireland in the early 1960s.
Spike Lee’s magnum opus still blazes with fury and rhythm three decades later. Set on one suffocating Brooklyn summer day in 1989, it captures the temperature of a city ready to boil over. A real masterpiece of rabble-rousing cinema.
This gala showcases the work and life of popular British-Nigerian photographer Misan Harriman as he documents various protests around the globe. Director Andy Mundy-Castle’s framework attempts to examine equality, civil rights and the power of collective action all through the lens of one astute photographer. Followed by a Q&A with Mundy-Castle.
Sergio Leone’s seminal spaghetti western will never look better than when it is on screen at the Everyman Theatre. Sprawling, operatic and epic in every sense, the film finds an outlaw trying to protect a widow from the cruel mercenary coming in to take over her land. Ennio Morricone’s haunting score is the cherry on top of a timeless masterpiece.
This Kate Hudson and Hugh Jackman vehicle isn’t your typical musical biopic. The story surrounds two singers who form a Neil Diamond tribute band called Lightning and Thunder and fall in love on their journey to the top of the Milwaukee tribute band scene. The gala will include the presentation of the CIFF Features Awards.
This French-Belgian co-production is brief at only 75 minutes long, and a perfect trip to the movies for the family. The titular Amelie is a Belgian child living in Japan. On her third birthday, life-shaping events begin to alter the little girl’s understanding of the world around her.
We can’t get enough of Paul Mescal. And now we have even more of him with a slow-burn romantic drama starring the Kildare man alongside Josh O’Connor. The story follows the relationship between Lionel (Mescal) and David (O'Connor), who travel together recording folk songs of their countrymen in rural Maine in the winter of 1920.
Bradley Cooper takes to the director’s chair for a third time, this time telling the story of Alex Novak (Will Arnett), a man who enters the New York comedy circuit as a means of processing his failed marriage to Laura Dern. Loosely based on the life of British comedian John Bishop, it’s poised to close the festival on a bittersweet, human note.
