With the beautiful backdrop of the Dingle Peninsula and eleven years of a successful run behind it the Dingle International Film Festival returns on the 23rd March. This four day event consists of an event filled programme to please visitors to and residents of West Kerry alike.
Despite the yearly challenges of funding which accompanies every film festival thanks to great support from the Irish Film Board, the Arts Council and locally from Udaras na Gaeltachta The Dingle International Film Festival has become a prestigious boutique festival that has just gone from strength to strength .
I caught up with Maurice Galwey the founder/CEO and Artistic Director of the Dingle International Film Festival and began by enquiring as to what were the predominant factors that makes this boutique film festival on the south west coast of Ireland such a resounding success.
Maurice strongly believes that Dingle's incredible location is a huge factor in the film festival's popularity. It's also home to one of Ireland's oldest independent cinemas in the Phoenix Cinema which was established back in 1937. The fact that many filmmakers also live in the area is another contributing element as well as West Kerry's obvious notoriety as a superb film location, used famously in the likes of David Lean’s Ryans Daughter, Ron Howard's Far and Away and most recently Star Wars The Force Awakens which was shot on Skellig Michael.
These are all important factors that add to the Film festivals appeal but Maurice also points out how diligent they have been with their selections of both feature and short film, and also in acquiring great talent to assess the voting and delivering their expertise, culminating consistently in a high quality programme for all to enjoy.
For the visitors to the Dingle International Film Festival, it's not all about the red carpet. This is also an excellent opportunity to experience Dingle's wonderful setting and hospitality and interact with these experts of the movie industry in a relaxed and warm environment.
The input and importance of the local audience is especially important to Maurice as he realises that due to time and financial constraints the locals will indeed make up a huge percentage of the box office. To ensure a strong festival and turnout, the importance of the programme cannot be underestimated and this years programme is full of high quality events.
This begins on Thursday 23rd March, with the movie "Free Fire" from critically acclaimed director Ben Wheatly and a Q&A session with the director himself, in what is a fantastic coup for the festival.
Friday 24th March sees another exciting event with the Irish premiere of "Stanley a Man of Variety" which also features a Q&A session with director Stephen Cookson and on Sunday 26th March the screening of Jim Sheridan's adaption of the Sebastian Barry novel "Secret Scripture" also promises to be another very popular event with the movie going audience.
Dingle International Film Festival will also show, thanks to European Parliament support, the French film, Oscar nominated "My Life as a Courgette" which will be subtitled for the Irish language to cater for the local Irish speaking audience.
This year will also see the celebration of four female filmmakers living in Dingle with the screening of their short films. One of these films will be the newly crowned Chicago Irish Film Festival winner "Uisce Beatha" by Elaine Kennedy. Both "Uisce Beatha" along with ”Life is Short” by Colleen Grace Herlihy were both finalists last year in the Dingle International Film Festival Fisin Project which is a competition that encourages writing in the Irish language.
A new event to the Dingle International Film Festival - POW WOW which is "aimed specifically at young creatives in the Film and Television industry, and will assist them in gaining knowledge of both film and television" takes place in Ionad an Bhlascaoid Mhóir on Saturday 25th March and will feature such talent as Todd Komarnicki a prolific writer, producer and director of film and television, whose work includes Clint Eastwoods latest feature "Sully" and Michael Uppendahl, American Television Director whose work includes Fargo, American Horror Story, Ray Donovan, and Daredevil.
All those events, together with the always popular and already sold out "Animation Dingle" along with much more fantastic screenings and workshops too numerous to mention means Dingle is headed for yet another highly successful festival again this year.
A full list of events and further details can be seen on the Dingle International Film Festival 2017 website.
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