New Irish Movies

COMING INTO CLOVER: Ireland and the Irish in Early American Cinema.

Presented at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in February 2009: A multi-media exploration of Ireland and the Irish in early American cinema, featuring rarely-seen short films from the 1890s-1910s with live musical accompaniment. Hosted by Brian O'Donovan.

Visit the Boston Irish Film Festival for full details.

Irish Films

Eden, a marital drama, won the Magner's Irish Film Festival 2008 "Best Film" award. Read more >>

It appears Boston liked Red Roses and Petrol, a screen adaptation of the internationally successful Irish stage play by Joseph O’Connor starring Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange, NBC’s “Heroes”) and featuring music from the popular band Flogging Molly. Read more >>

The Basket Case, the debut effort from stand-up comedian Owen O’Neill, is the best short film

Red Roses and Petrol

Based on a successful Irish play by acclaimed writer Joseph O’Conner, and directed by Tamar Simon Hoffs, the darkly comedic drama offers a tour-de-force showcase for McDowell as Enda Doyle, a university librarian, poet, and rascal who is the flawed patriarch of a dysfunctional family struggling to come to terms with his death and with one another. Unfolding amidst a haze of cigarette smoke and uneaten food, as his family gathers in Dublin for his wake, Red Roses and Petrol explores the emotional dynamics of familial relationships with sharp humor and surprising turns.

Brief Synopsis of the film:  Based on a successful Irish play by acclaimed writer Joseph O’Connor, and directed by Tamar Simon Hoffs, the darkly comedic drama offers a tour-de-force showcase for McDowell as Enda Doyle, a university librarian, poet, and rascal who is the flawed patriarch of a dysfunctional family struggling to come to terms with his death and with one another. As the family gathers in Dublin for Enda’s wake, Red Roses and Petrol explores the dynamics of familial relationships with sharp humor and surprising turns.  Additional cast members include Max Beesley of BBC’s “Hotel Babylon,” Heather Juergensen (Kissing Jessica Stein), former Miss Ireland Olivia Tracey, and Susan Lynch (Waking Ned Divine).

• Official Website
• Fandango reviews
• World Wide Motion Pictures
• Irisih Examiner article
• Sean McCarthy's interview with Olivia Tracy  

The film won first prize at the Avignon Film Festival, was runner up at the Westwood Film Festival, and received recognition at the Deauville Film Festival, AFI (American Film Institute) Fest, the Boston Irish Film Festival (next Festival Nov 10-24, 2008), the Newport Beach Film Festival, the Toronto Film Festival circuit, and the Palm Springs Film Festival.

In Bruges - Darkly rich in humour, In Bruges is an action comedy film about two hit-men sent to lie low after a botched job in the Gothic European city, Bruges. Posing as tourists, the Irish duo find themselves in comically compromising situations with locals, Dutch prostitutes, a dwarf, and a stunningly persuasive female with an agenda of her own, turning their 'vacation' into a life-and-death struggle of comic proportions and surprisingly emotional consequences. [Source: Irish Emmigrant]

View the trailer for "In Bruges" and other new releases in the Irish film industry at IFTN.

Note: To view trailers you must have the Quicktime Player. Follow this link to Download Quicktime.

Music and Film Series in New York City

Founded in 1998 as a nonprofit organization, the Film Fleadh Foundation (FFF) has designed and produced The CRAIC Festival, annually presenting Irish cinematic and musical culture to the New York City and tri-state region. The Film Fleadh, in its tenth year, presents Irish films, while the CRAIC Music Series focuses on bringing over emerging musical acts, as well as featuring Irish-American bands. [Source: The Craic]

The 10th annual CRAIC Music Series will be held on March 6th through the 8th at The Mercury Lounge (Houston Street off Ave A) .

FILM FLEADH

The Films

Kings
Directed by Tom Collins, NY Premiere

A universal story of disenfranchisement and search for identity. In the mid 1970s, a group of six young men left their homes in the West of Ireland, took the boat out of Dublin Bay and sailed across the sea to England in the hope of making their fortunes and returning home. Thirty years later only one, Jackie Flavin, makes it home - but does so in a coffin. Jackie’s five friends reunite at his wake where they are forced face up to the reality of their alienation as long term emigrants who have no longer have any real place to call home.

Starring Colm Meaney and Donal O’Kelly; Directed by Tom Collins.
Kings is the first Irish-produced bi-lingual film.

The Director & star will be in attendance for a Q&A.

FIGHT or FLIGHT
Directed by Peter McCarthy

This is possibly one of the best martial arts feature length documentaries to surface. Be warned, this is not a hard core "punches per minute" feature film but an in depth look into conflict in the human mind. Backed by the martial arts industry internationally and given the blessing of buddhist monks as a true picture of "Man in western society" this film is a must for anyone involved or wishing to be involved in martial arts

YouTube link

BELFAST GIRLS

BELFAST GIRLS is a quiet, powerful story of two young women growing up in a city where neighbors are cut off from each other by permanent concrete and corrugated iron screens. These so-called “peace walls” have also become mental walls, dividing one community from another. Living in different worlds within the same city, Mairéad Mc Ilkenny and Christine Savage share the legacy of 30 years of conflict in Northern Ireland. With insightful clarity, Swedish director Malin Andersson reveals how, in their daily struggles and triumphs, these two strong women have more in common with each other than they have differences.

If I Should Fall From Grace
The Shane MacGowan Story
Directed by Sarah Share

This unflinching, music-driven documentary provides the first real insight into the background and career of this legendary Irish artist who, as lead singer and songwriter for The Pogues, became a worldwide punk icon. Despite years of drug and alcohol abuse that have pushed the archetype of rock and roll excess to its outer limit, Shane MacGowan is still widely regarded as one of the very finest songwriters of his entire generation. The film includes contemporary interviews (including a candid Nick Cave on his heroin addiction)  interwoven with performance material stretching back to Shane's earliest work along with  fly-on-the-wall footage from both London and Ireland. Both the highs, and the often-alarming lows of his career are revealed. Celebrated director Jim Sheridan has described this absorbing, accessible documentary as "A fascinating, moving, and powerful film that brilliantly captures a unique Irish genius". If I Should Fall From Grace is produced & directed by Sarah Share.

All films will be at Cinema Village W. 12th St. off University Place. All films are $10 except for Kids Fleadh, tickets availavle through ticketweb.com
More information on The Film Fleadh :384 Warren St., (#2R), Brooklyn, NY 11201. Telephone:646-549-1349

The International collaborators include The Irish Film Board, Northern Ireland Film Commission , Irish Arts Council, and the Cultural Relations Committee.

Film Festivals

Irish Film and Television Network ~ Film Festivals

News and information about the film festivals and "fleadh's" in and outside of Ireland.

The Sundance Festival 2007 Irish Films

Once

The film answers the question, "How often do you find the right person?"

Movie Review of Once by The Exile (see other reviews) on Eye for Film(visit their film review archive from A to Z)

Excerpt from The Exile review:

John Carney’s Once is both melancholy and beautiful, a fragile poem that seems almost too delicate for the big screen. So modest it doesn’t even bother to name its characters, the movie nevertheless imparts a near-miraculous wealth of information in the position of a camera and the dressing of a set. Once is a rarity: a musical more concerned with music than costumes and a love story more interested in love than sex.

and

An unexpected hit at Sundance this year (where it won the Audience Award for best drama), Once works by balancing the feathery charm of its bittersweet story with the scruffy realism of its aesthetics. The songs - haunting melodies of agony tinged with a tentative hopefulness - pair perfectly with the film’s cobblestone streets and dank apartments.

See the Apple trailerfor Once.

The other Irish entry in the 2007 Sundance festival is:

The Future Is Unwritten (Ireland/UK; Director: Julien Temple)
An invitation from Joe Strummer, the Punk Rock Warlord himself, to journey beyond the myth to the heart and voice of a generation. His life, our times, his music. World Premiere. You can watch a music video of Joe Strummer on You Tube.

For reviews of new releases, visit Eye for Film: The Latest Movies on Release

Magners Irish Film Festival

Harvard Film Archive at the Brattle Theater, Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA (617) 713-0831 or wwwirishfilmfestival.com

The 10th Annual Magners Irish Film Festival was held in Cambridge (Massachusetts) in November 2008. Continuing to celebrate the very best of Ireland and the Irish on screen, the annual event showcases an outstanding collection of contemporary Irish and Irish-related features, documentaries and shorts.

Among the many films showcased last year were the 2007 BIFF Award winners:

* The Front Line (Best Feature)
* The Hunger Strike (Best Documentary)
* Deep Breaths (Best Short Subject)
* On Broadway (Director’s Choice.)

The BIFF Awards were inaugurated in 2003 with the Fifth Annual Boston Irish Film Festival (BIFF 5)

The 2007 Excellence Award honoree is Aidan Quinn, who was present at a special screening and award ceremony held in his honor.

"We got used to living in two different cultures and being able to go back and forth", he once said in an interview. "With Declan, Marian and myself it's always back and forth, Irish-American, American-Irish…". Read Aiden's biography and see a list of films he has acted in.

The event also featured screenings of John Boorman's new film The Tiger's Tail and the celebrated new comedy Short Order.

Celtic Beat often has listings of local envents, including Irish film events.

Chicago Irish Film Festival

The 2007 festival was delighted to welcome John Callaghan and his film Imagine This. this year’s winners:

Audience Awards:

1st Place: An Teanga Runda dir: Brian Durnin

2nd Place:
Not A Word dir: Cathy Mooney

3rd Place:
What If… dir: Alan Walsh

Honorable Mention:
Pilgram dir: matthew Darragh

Festival Awards:

1st Place:
Horn OK Please dir: Joel Simon

2nd Place:
Imagine This dir: John Callaghan

3rd Place:
Teeth dir: John Kennedy and Ruairi O’Brien

Honorable Mention:
Last Night dir: Conor Morrissey

Link to past Chicago Film Festival movies

IRISH FILM TRAILERS

There is nothing like the sensory impact of of seeing and hearing an Irish story unfold in film or video. The Irish film industry in recent years has flourished with movies and documentaries well worth seeing. Some of the more obscure movies may not be easily located, especially in your local video store. I have found Netflix a great source of such special interest DVDs. There are or will be other commercial sources like Netflix (and some, I'm sure, I have yet to discover).

If you don't already have QuickTime installed, go to the Apple site to download the latest version.

Atonement
Saoirse Ronan, a 13-year-old Irish actress is being tipped for Hollywood stardom after her debut film took the Venice Film Festival by storm. Atonement, which was the curtain-raiser for the prestigious festival, is being hailed as a strong contender for the Golden Lion award for best film. Ronan plays a young girl whose over-active imagination leads to tragedy in the movie, which is adapted from the wartime novel by Ian McEwan. Watch the movie trailer for Atonement.

A DVD I enjoyed recently (from Netflix) is The Boys and Girl from County Clare. Although this may be of more particular interest to someone interested in traditional Irish music or irish dancing, it is an appealing story in its own right. It's about sibling rivalry, a Caeli Band Contest, and a bittersweet awakening.

The Tiger's Tail (2007) movie trailer

A recent Irish film being talked about is The Wind That Shakes the Barley (easycinema.com review). "Palme d'Or Winner at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, Ken Loach's film focuses on the Irish struggle for independence in 1920." Set in Cork, Ireland.

One reviewer explains, "The Barley are the Irish people and the Wind is the English. The wind cannot last forever, although it will blow away some of the barley, the rest will remain and the seeds they lay will lead to the regrowth of the Barley field. Very much what has happened in a now fully independent Ireland." (Gethin Payne from Manchester, England, July 5, 2006)

"powerfull,well acted,and very well made.Shows the tit for tat goings on in the early 1920`s in Ireland and how ruthless it was on all sides,a film everyone must see,not hollywood-ised just simple filmmaking at it`s best."

"A fine piece of cinema..Stirring **** " Wendy Ide ~ The Times

View Movie Trailers of The Wind that Shakes the Barley on Apple Movie Trailers.

View more Irish movie trailers on Apple's website.

Black Irish (view movie trailer) ~ a movie I have on my "to see" list; after all, it is set in South Boston and is described as "complex, rich and heartwarming." It is a coming of age movie, and ...

""Black Irish" carves a new benchmark in the coming-of-age genre. Because it is so much more than that. Read the full review on the Internet Movie Database. Read another short review of this well-received movie.

Apple Trailers: Irish movies

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Once - Apple Trailer
A modern day musical set on the streets of Dublin. Featuring Glen Hansard and his Irish band “The Frames,” the film tells the story of a street musician and a Czech immigrant during an eventful week as they write, rehearse and record songs that reveal their unique love story. [Listen to iTunes Samplers of music from the motions picture Once - select Once (music from the motin picture under Featured Soundtrack on Apple's trailer website.]
*
August Rush - Apple Trailer

Tells the story of a charismatic young Irish guitarist (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) and a sheltered young cellist (Keri Russell) who have a chance encounter one magical night above New York’s Washington Square, but are soon torn apart, leaving in their wake an infant, August Rush, orphaned by circumstance. Now performing on the streets of New York and cared for by a mysterious stranger (Robin Williams), August (Freddie Highmore) uses his remarkable musical talent to seek the parents from whom he was separated at birth.

*
Breakfast on Pluto - Apple Trailer

Set in the 1970’s, Breakfast on Pluto follows the exploits of Patrick Braden, an endearing, but deceptively tough young man. Abandoned as a baby in his small Irish hometown and aware from a very early age that he is different, Patrick survives this harsh environment with the aid of his wit and charm, plus a sweet refusal to let anyone and anything change who he is.

The Wind That Shakes the Barley - AppleTrailer

In Ireland, in 1920, workers from all over Ireland unite and form volunteer guerrilla armies to face the ruthless “Black and Tan” squads that are being shipped from Britain to block Ireland’s bid for independence. [See trailers this page, also.]

Find more reviews of this movie on Google's database

Short Films, Travelogues, Television Series, etc.

The Man Of Aran

Falling For A Dancer

A Four Part Travelogue on Ireland

Travelogue on County Mayo

Father Ted - TV series
Crazy sitcom about 3 priests and their housekeeper who live on Craggy Island in the west. The Father Ted series was voted Best Comedy at the Bafta Awards and won Best Sitcom for two years running at the British Comedy Awards. [The Irish actor Dermot Morgan, who played Father Ted, died unexpectedlay at his home in London at the age of 45 in 1998, just five days before thelaunch of the third Father Ted serirs.]

Watch the Father Ted series on your computer starting with Episode One. Find your favorite videos on VEOH. Browse all TV shows (almost 700 to choose from at this writing). Search for Irish videos on VEOH; refine you search as you like because this includes home videos, as well.

Killnaskully - TV series
Set in the fictional Irish village of Killnaskully the comedy-drama show follows the antics of a group of madcap villagers, most of whom are played by Pat Shortt. The fourth series of Killnaskully started in Septempber 2007

The Irish R.M. - TV series
The Irish R.M. presents the often witty adventures of Major Sinclair Yates, a retired English army officer appointed Resident Magistrate for West Ireland in the days before Irish independence (1898). Comic situations arise from the misunderstandings between the English and Irish, as well as from Yates' attempts to become familiar with--and keep order amongst--the eccentric townspeople.

Bachground: This was a British television series, which originally aired on PBS' Masterpiece Theatre. The 18 episodes were shot entirely on location in County Kildare; the series ran from 1983 to 1985. The series, also available on DVD, is based on the collected edition of the Irish R.M. stories by second cousins Edith Somerville and Martin Ross (Violet Martin), which includes three groups of comic stories about the English resident magistrate with an Irish background, Major Yeates of County Cork. The authors belonged to the Anglo-Irish Protestant landed gentry of West Cork and Galway; they were unmarried daughters of families whose status had steadily declined through the nineteenth century with the overturning of political, religious and social privileges.

Christmas from The Pro Cathederal, Dublin, Ireland

Watch The Black Donnelly's and Other American TV Shows on Your Computer ~ For Free

Watch The Black Donnelly"s and other TV shows on NBC.com . It's free. The Donnelly's are four Irish -American brothers ..., well, there's a good summay of events on the show at Wikipedia.com. Like The Tonight Show with Jay Leno but can't stay up late? Catch up on the shows you missed - even last night's episode. Take your pick of tv series at fancast.com. See more links to American tv shows. >>

Documentaries

A documentary about Irish emigration is The Irish Empire; it comes in three volumes.

Another interesting DVD is Irish Writers; a look at some of the world's most famous writers. The scenes of Ireland were the writers lived or wrote about are stunning.

• The Irish in Film
  New Irish movies ~ an annotated database
  
  

Classic Irish Movies
some classic films that have strong content relating to Ireland or Irish people; many of them have to do with either the I.R.A. or the potato famine, but there are others that are simply stories about Irish people, either in their homeland or in the United States.

Irish Movie Links

Irish "movies," or "fil-ems" as the Irish say, once rare treats for the American movie-going audience, are more prolific in recent years and there are many top box-office hits and award winners among them. This section lists websites with links to information on film and videos made for the cinema and also delivered on DVD or other means for entertainment, information and instructional purposes produced by Irish filmakers or about the Irish.

Many of the movies listed the list of Irish films were pulled from the extensive compilation on the List of Movies with Irish Themes on the Irish Aires Radio Show on KPFT-FM Radio Station in Texas website (90.1FM & on the Internet). They shared the list to make it easy to take the list to the video store in your search for an Irish or Irish-themed movie. Another source for the list of movies was the Irish Times Pub & Restaurant in Chicago (Illinois) website; they list a library of films that they make available to be shown at their pub. Below is a combination of those movies and others with reviews and clips, where available, from various other sources.

Ireland and the Irish on Film
A long list of films with abstracts on The University of Notre Dame Library website. Includes popular Irish films shown in cinemas or available in video stores or for rental or purchase online. These videocassettes and DVDs are available in Notre Dames libray system. An excellent compilation! check this list for films you may have missed.

Irish Cinema Websites
A listing of website links about Irish cinema

Reel Ireland
REEL IRELAND offers the best of new Irish cinema - and some classics from the Irish Film Archive - for exhibition at festivals and cultural events all over the world.

The Irish in Film

a database of Irish movies with reviews