Countdown to Corona Cork Film Festival begins

The Corona Cork Film Festival unveils its programme tonight and as usual, it’s a varied and impressive array of Irish and foreign films.

Particularly striking this year, according to festival director Mick Hannigan is the amount of Cork films involved. He points out ‘The Pier’, filmed in Ballydehob, Patrick O’Shea’s ‘Tree Keeper’, filmed all over Cork and ‘Steamin’ And Dreamin’ 2’ will all be shown at the festival. The latter two receive their world premieres at Ireland’s oldest film festival.

“This year we expanded the Made In Cork section from two programs to three programs, solely because of the quality of the work. This year especially, the argument for staging an extra night was very compelling,” he said.

He said the opening film for the festival before the Opening Gala would be Cork man Brian Cronin’s poetic ‘Fond of a Moth’, Cork Film Centre’s latest production.

Also participating in the festival are the newly formed Southern Screen Professionals and the Cork Screen Commission will be also be launched over the festival.

The main film for the Opening Gala is the Sundance Film Festival winning ‘Like Crazy’.

Mr Hannigan also mentioned that Tommy Tiernan would also be attending the world premiere of his new DVD, ‘Tommy Tiernan: Crooked Man’, which was shot in the City Limits Comedy Club on Coburg Street.

The festival director is particularly looking forward to Portuguese director Edgar Pêra

who will be in Cork to present his latest feature ‘The Baron’, along with a number of his other films.

One of the most interesting special guests to appear in Cork will be the American policewoman who blew the whistle on the UN for covering up a sex trafficking scandal in Bosnia. Kathryn Bolkovac will attend the Corona Cork Film Festival in November for the Irish premiere of ‘The Whistleblower’.

Hannigan said he was delighted that the film festival was back in the Triskel after a short gap, and was looking forward to using the Christchurch venue to put on a number of shows with live accompaniment there. 

He added that he was “very impressed with the lineup”, which he only saw for the first time on Tuesday. “Certainly, I’m looking forward to lots of things on the programme that I haven’t seen.” 

The Corona Cork Film Festival, Ireland’s oldest film festival will take place from November 6-13 and will showcase a diverse selection of big budget films, world cinema, independent films, international documentaries and short films from all over the world.  

The festival will also feature a feast of slow food on Film with a screening of Jorge Coira’s ’18 Meals’, which follows an eclectic group of characters whose stories unfold over the meals of a day.

The Fourth Japanese Film Festival will launch in Cork on 6 November, showcasing the best in Japanese cinema for Cork audiences. The Festival, with screenings taking place as a sidebar of the Corona Cork Film Festival, will this year feature 9 films, 6 of which are Irish premieres.   

Other sidebar events include a focus on Romanian short films and archival screenings including one to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the 1936 Killarney production ‘The Dawn’.

The 56th Corona Film Festival will take place from 6-13 November and the full programme will be announced at the end of next week. Tickets for screenings will also be available next week online at www.corkfilmfest.org and at the Festival Box Office located in Cork Opera House.