The Kerry Film Festival is presenting the Maureen O’Hara Award for women who have excelled in film to the Irish actress Saoirse Ronan.
The festival which runs from October 9 to 25 will showcase new short films from Kerry and Ireland, opening with the acclaimed Pilgrim Hill, winner of the Bingham Ray New Talent Award at the Galway Film Fleadh. Pilgrim Hill depicts tough rural life in North Kerry.
Over 100 shorts will be screened from Singapore, USA, Australia, Denmark, Belgium, Spain, Mexico and South Africa, as well as a selection of films from the Busho Short Film Festival in Hungary.
The Made in Kerry shorts programme celebrates the best of Kerry film-making. Highlights include the BAFTA-winning Pitch Black Heist, starring Michael Fassbender and Liam Cunningham, the animation short Head Over Heels and Home Turf, which celebrates the art of hand turf cutting.
The judging panel of the Short Film Awards this year includes Dave Fanning presiding over the Best International Short category; director and producer Paul Duane (Barbaric Genius, Ballykissangel, Footballers’ Wives) judging the Best Documentary Short; writer, director and producer Terry George (Some Mother’s Son, Hotel Rwanda) for the Best Irish Short category, and Jam Media’s John Rice (Picme, Roy) for the Best Animated Short.
The marriage of music and film will be celebrated with a screening of Fritz Lang’s silent masterpiece Metropolis accompanied by a live score by 3epkano. Meanwhile, an inflatable cinema, no less, will take up residence in the Brandon Hotel in Tralee.
Additional feature films screening in the festival will include Irish debuts The Rás Tailteann, Shamrocracy and The End of the Earth is My Home. Tom Tywker’s Three / Drei will also be screened, the eagerly-anticipated new feature from the director of Run, Lola, Run. This Berlin-set drama centers on a 40-something couple who, separately, fall in love with the same man.
The festival takes place in venues across the county, beginning with Tralee between October 9 and 13; Listowel October 16 to 18; Kenmare, October 18 and Waterville, October 25.
For further information visit www.kerryfilmfestival.com
