Maura Tierney launches the 2011 Jameson Dublin International Film Festival (or JDIFF if you like acronyms).
‘ER’ & ‘Liar Liar’ actress Maura Tierney officially launched the 2011 Jameson Dublin International Film Festival, alongside ‘Raw’ actress Charlene McKenna at Dublin’s Tripod theatre tonight.
The festival taking place from Feb 17th to 27th 2011 features over 130 screenings plus a myriad of special events, panel discussions, public interviews and industry masterclasses, with special guests at the festival including Emilio Estevez, Martin Sheen, Kevin Spacey, Richard Ayoade, Ken Loach, Jim Loach, Guillaume Canet, Harry Shearer, Timothy Spall, Aiden Gillen, Eva Birthistle, George Nolfi, Fiona Glascott and Andrew Scott.
We’ve gone through the brochure and listed a number of our highlights here.
The festival opens with comedian Richard Ayoade’s (The IT Crowd, The Mighty Boosh) directorial debut Submarine, festival audiences will be treated to a succession of Irish premieres, including: George Nolfi’s action-packed The Adjustment Bureau starring Matt Damon; Emilio Estevez’s second film starring Martin Sheen, The Way; the tense thriller Unknown, starring Liam Neeson and Aidan Quinn; the visually stunningly Anton Checkov’s The Duel starring Fiona Glascott and Andrew Scott; the new Woody Allen film You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger; Irish film Wake Wood from the legendary Hammer Films starring Aidan Gillen, Eva Birthistle and Timothy Spall; Ken Loach’s thriller Route Irish, set on the most dangerous road in Iraq, and his son Jim Loach’s first feature Oranges and Sunshine as well as two of the shortlisted films for best foreign language Oscar, Incendies (Canada) and Life, Above All (South Africa).
The Jameson Cult Film Club which has already been a big success abroad, is now being launched in Ireland. Oscar winning actor Kevin Spacey will visit to Dublin for a special interactive screening of The Usual Suspects. “This is our ninth year as sponsor and we look forward to a great festival in 2011.” Said Emma Donnellan, Marketing Director with Irish Distillers Pernod Ricard. “We will showcase Jameson Cult Film Club – a series of special screenings which take place in unexpected non-cinema locations – for the first time in Ireland. We kick off the series at the festival with The Usual Suspects and we are delighted to welcome the Oscar winning actor and star Kevin Spacey who will discuss the film after the screening.” The Jameson Dublin International Film Festival will be supported by a fully integrated €1.5 million marketing campaign, including TV, on-line, cinema, print and outdoor advertising, experiential marketing as well as an intensive PR campaign.
Each year festival programmer Grainne Humphreys spotlights a number of international seasons. This February the focus is emerging Romanian cinema, highlights including the fascinating The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu and the bittersweet comedy Hello, How Are You? The hugely anticipated Latin Cinema Season includes Diego Luna’s (Y Tu Mamá También, Milk) skillful directorial debut, Abel, and the extraordinary Preludio, shot in a single take and exploring the development of love.
French cinema is also well represented, with a screening of Little White Lies, directed by the multi-talented Guillaume Canet (The Beach, Tell No One) and François Ozon’s multi- Cesar nominated sparkling comedy-of-manners Potiche, starring Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu as the Closing Gala.
The 2011 Irish Talent Spotlight casts its gaze on the work of director Juanita Wilson, animator David O’Reilly and actor Aiden Gillen. There will also be a focus behind the scenes of the industry with a number of events: Screentest is a series of careers related panel discussions; a Screenwriting Panel discussion held in association with Dublin City Libraries, and the new screenwriting competition Untitled. Exploring the blurring boundaries between cinema and computer games, the Off The Grid event will also bring gaming ‘industry legend’ Charles Cecil to Dublin for a masterclass in interactive storytelling.
The festival celebrates the intrinsic role of music in many films with a captivating 90th anniversary screening of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse accompanied by a live score by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra in the National Concert Hall. Many documentaries in the festival will also turn the lens on music, with Upside Down, the story of Creation Records, the label that brought us The Jesus and Mary Chain and Oasis; Good Cake Bad Cake: The Story of LiR, the band tipped to succeed U2; Kinshasa Symphony, a stereotype dispelling view of the Congo through the eyes of L’Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste and Ballymun Lullaby, the inspirational account of Ron Cooney’s Ballymun Music Programme.
Click Here for a list of our 2011 festival highlights.
Stay tuned to Movies.ie during the festival for interviews, news and reviews.