films

Irish Talent and Film Recognised in BAFTA Longlists

~ Michael Stevenson ~ Leave a comment

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) today announced the full set of longlists of films and talent that have gone through to Round Two of voting for the 2023 EE BAFTA Film Awards. We are delighted to see that several Irish films and story makers were featured in the 24 categories, including three Screen Ireland-supported films.

An Cailín Ciúin (The Quiet Girl) has recently made history as the first Irish language film to be shortlisted for the Oscars, and continues to confirm its hit status with audiences and critics alike this awards season after an exceptional year rich in festival and cinema screenings. An intricate, deeply felt coming-of-age drama that delves into the meaning of family through the eyes of a neglected young girl, the film is longlisted in three categories, including Best Director (Colm Bairéad), Adapted Screenplay and Film Not In The English Language.

Two Screen Ireland-supported documentaries are also featured on today’s longlists. Nothing Compares, Kathryn Ferguson’s richly cinematic portrait of Sinéad OʼConnorʼs phenomenal rise to worldwide fame and exile from the pop mainstream, is shortlisted in the Oustanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer category. The documentary and An Cailín Ciúin are both currently screening in select cinemas across Ireland showcasing the best of 2022 Irish film, including the Irish Film Institute and Light House Cinema.

A fascinating look at the life and legend of an iconic Irish actor, Adrian Sibley’s The Ghost of Richard Harris is a feature documentary which recalls the life of the legendary actor, poet, and singer with the help of his sons, his friends and exclusive footage and interviews. The film is longlisted in the Documentary category. After a World Premiere at the Venice Film Festival this summer, the film was released in a limited theatrical run, followed by a streaming release on Sky Arts.

We are also delighted to see Irish talent recognised with the inclusion of multiple films featuring Irish cast, crew and locations, including The Wonder, Good Luck To You, Leo Grande, Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical and The Banshees of Inisherin. Congratulations to all longlisted films, and wishing them the best for the second round of voting.

Final nominations in all categories will be announced on Thursday 19th January, a month before the EE BAFTA Films Awards ceremony on 19th February at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall. The full list of longlisted films can be found here.

 

Source: Irish Talent and Film Recognised in BAFTA Longlists

“You Are Not My Mother” – An unholy marriage of Irish folklore and familial dysfunction

~ Michael Stevenson ~ Leave a comment

Film review: Impressive debut blurs line between friction, bipolar disorder and the supernatural

By Tara Brady

Kate Dolan’s promising debut feature opens with an indelible sequence in which a baby in a buggy is parked in the middle of a suburban Dublin street. A woman walks from her house and pushes the infant into nearby woods only to assemble and light a strange, ritualistic fire around the crying child.

Thus begins an unholy marriage of Irish folklore and familial dysfunction. At its best, You Are Not My Mother’s intergenerational portrait of women and strange goings-on recalls the slow-burning Alzheimer’s horror of Natalie Erika James’s Relic.

Hazel Doupe (Float like a Butterfly) stars as a reticent, bullied teenager named Char, who lives with her depressed mum Angela (Carolyn Bracken) and increasingly odd grandmother Rita (Ingrid Craigie). As the film opens, Angela, a mere husk of a woman, is scarcely able to perform such basic maternal responsibilities as grocery shopping, driving her daughter to school, or getting out of bed.

When Angela’s car is found abandoned, with the doors flung wide open, Char and her uncle Aaron (Paul Reid) are inclined to assume the worst, even if it is indicated that this is not an isolated incident.

Angela returns, however, in weirdly irrepressible form, cooking and performing unhinged dancing around the kitchen. Granny keeps pace with her daughter’s strangeness, muttering and fashioning strange amulets.

For much of its impressive duration, Dolan’s film blurs the line between family friction, bipolar disorder and the supernatural. Mother’s lithium dose doubles as a magical sleeping elixir and as a poison. Mysterious mutterings among neighbours mark the family out as outsiders without any particular substance.

Meanwhile, away from Char’s drab home, malevolent peers await. As Halloween approaches, their tricks turn nastier. Thin spaces may await. Die Hexen’s score adds to the post-Carpenter seasonal menace, as does Narayan Van Maele’s lurking camera.

Dolan skilfully escalates her heroine’s predicament even if the final muddled mythological explanation concerning doppelgangers and changelings and fire punctures the effect during the final act. There’s enough here, however, to mark Dolan out as a film-maker.

Source: You Are Not My Mother: An unholy marriage of Irish folklore and familial dysfunction

Enticing Brits Back To The Cinema With Classics Like ‘Trainspotting’

~ Michael Stevenson ~ Leave a comment

Trainspotting

Film4 is partnering with film distributor Park Circus on a campaign to entice Brits back to the cinema. Under the deal, the duo will offer UK cinemas a season of six classic features from the Film4 library, including Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting and Jonathan Glazer’s Sexy Beast.

The films will initially screen in Picturehouse, Everyman, Odeon, Vue, and Showcase theaters across the country from the start of July, with other venues joining the initiative in the coming weeks. It follows cinemas reopening in the UK on May 17 after the most recent coronavirus lockdown.

The four other films in the Film4 season are Mark Herman’s Brassed Off, Stephen Frears’ rom-com My Beautiful Launderette, Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero, and Bhaji on the Beach, from director Gurinder Chadha.

Film4’s parent Channel 4 will support the season with an advertising campaign across its TV channels, as well as online. The ads will be created by in-house creative agency 4Creative.

Film4 director Daniel Battsek said: “Film4 have a long history of producing films for theatrical exhibition. We felt we should do something to help the sector’s recovery from the pandemic and remind audiences that cinemas remain the best places to experience movies.”

Park Circus CEO Mark Hirzberger-Taylor added: “We’re incredibly proud of our long-standing partnership with Film4, and are delighted to be collaborating with them on this special programme this summer, comprising six of their very best classic films, back on the big screen for audiences to enjoy.”

It is not the first time iconic titles have been brought back to the big screen in the UK to tempt audiences. Disney re-released the likes of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back when restrictions lifted on theaters last year.

Source: Film4 Teams With Park Circus To Entice Brits Back To The Cinema With Classics Like ‘Trainspotting’

Film Review: “Creation Stories”

~ Michael Stevenson ~ Leave a comment

Nick Moran’s biopic of Alan McGee, the infamous head of Creation Records, takes a fairly conventional narrative approach to this highly unconventional man. It’s a rags-to-riches tale, tracing his journey from a drab and dreamless life in Glasgow all the way to the very centre of the UK music industry.

The film takes most of its stylistic cues from the holy text of narcotic-infused Scottish stories, Trainspotting (perhaps not surprisingly so: Irvine Welsh is on script duty). McGee’s drug-addled adventures are brought to life with the same bag of distorted lens, haphazard angles and scenes of weird hallucination. In an attempt to match the frenetic pace of his life and mind, it moves at a rapid clip, letting the audio spill from one scene to another, stitching the whole thing together with a lot of oddly matched shots and strange transitions. The resulting effect is often disorientating and not always in a particularly effective or purposeful way.

The quest to cram in as many needle drops, smash cuts and cute voiceover gags makes the whole thing feel a little manic, and its frantic energy often means that the big emotional beats get lost in the noise. Still, even if it’s playing a lot of other people’s songs and relying more on volume than skill, Creation Stories is anchored by a magnetic lead performance from Ewen Bremner and an overriding love for its subject, making for a hugely enjoyable jam even if it likely won’t become a classic.

Creative Stories has its world premiere at Glasgow Film Festival, screening 24-27 Feb
Released 20 Mar on Sky Cinema

No monsters under the bed in ‘Saint Maud,” but many in trenches the of her own mind

~ Michael Stevenson ~ Leave a comment

The pious British poet and artist William Blake once famously referred to organized religion as an “ugly distortion of a true spiritual life.” The more humankind attempts to put measures, limits, and analogues on the divine, the farther we got away from the undistilled truth of the unknowable.

by Piers Marchant 

The pious British poet and artist William Blake once famously referred to organized religion as an “ugly distortion of a true spiritual life.” The more humankind attempts to put measures, limits, and analogues on the divine, the farther we got away from the undistilled truth of the unknowable.

We are humans, we don’t so much like to truck with feelings alone, they are too intangible, resistant to description and predictability. It makes us uncomfortable to float in that pool of undefined spirituality, so we work feverishly hard to write scriptures and edicts of God’s word, and make symbols out of all the things we can’t possibly touch.

Blake’s courageous brand of self-attenuated spirituality seeps in throughout “Saint Maud,” Rose Glass’ commanding feature debut, about a young woman who believes she has found her divine path after a lifetime of feeling lost, and couldn’t be farther off the mark.

Continue reading →