Cork Film Festival holds a very special place in my heart, it was my first ever screening and it was a sold out performance of A Doctor’s Sword, it was a real Cork film and its response was incredible. This year I have another film playing at the festival about a hugely impressive Irishman who has achieved things on a global scale. Cathal McNaughton, Ireland’s only winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Photography, it is called I DREAM IN PHOTOS.
I was familiar with Cathal’s work from the time he won a Pulitzer Prize, in 2018. Then in March 2020, I read a newspaper article on how he had left his career – leaving what he called “the best job in the world”, aged just 40. As someone of a similar age the idea of quitting after receiving such a career defining accolade was puzzling. Surely winning the Pulitzer would be the springboard to do anything he wanted? The article itself was also quite cryptic, but at the same time intriguing and fascinating in equal measure, with a hint of darkness. There was diplomatic intrigue from the Indian government, accusations, and counterclaims.
Over the course of production, I have come to get a deep understanding of Cathal’s work, his approach to photography and photojournalism. But more importantly I have gotten to know Cathal: the man, his ethics, his values, and his beliefs. Certain photographs, certain images, have left a huge legacy on the world. Cathal’s award-winning career shows he is someone who has been blessed with a gift to take photographs that have this power. His overarching aim is to “give a voice to those that do not have one”.
But this gift is also a curse. The demands that it has taken on Cathal’s wellbeing and relationships are substantial.
In our world of disinformation and conflicting “truths” the need for Cathal’s work is greater than ever before. But must a photographer pay a price he cannot pay?
I will be at the Cork Festival doing a Q&A on Sunday the 19th with Cathal.
But I am also really looking forward to seeing One Night In Millstreet, as I’m a huge boxing fan and I remember the energy around the World Title Fight between Steve Collins and Chris Eubank in Millstreet in Cork in the 90s.
Another highlight for me will be So This Is Christmas from Ken Wardrop at the festival. I know Ken from Festivals and other industry events and love the way he uses humour in documentaries a much underused style in that genre.
Knit’s Island looks fascinating, I can’t recall another documentary that was made fully in a VR world, so I think that will be a highlight, to see a documentary filmed in a totally different way.
Cork International Film Festival will be screening some major international titles too which I’m really looking forward to, including The Bikeriders, starring Tom Hardy, Austin Butler and Jodie Comer which is directed by Jeff Nichols, who has a very interesting catalogue of films behind him as a director. Other international titles screening at the Festival that I’m interested in are Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers, and Eileen, starring Thomasin McKenzie and Anne Hathaway.
This year the programme is really strong with lots of options for all tastes. Cork International Film Festival has always been known as a strong supporter of Short Films, including films from new Irish talent, which is very exciting, given that Ireland is such a respected producer of film talent on the international stage. Cork International Film Festival really helps to showcase this new talent.
Words : Gary Lennon
FIVE MUST SEE FILMS AT THE FESTIVAL
SO THIS IS CHRISTMAS
Ken Wardrop is synonymous with heartfelt documentaries that highlight elements of Irish life. From relationships between mothers and sons to piano teachers’ role in their students’ lives, Wardrop’s take on human connection is warm and insightful. His latest documentary, So This Is Christmas, examines life for five Irish people in rural Ireland whose experience of Christmas isn’t all about festive cheer. Grief, loneliness, and financial pressures are just some of the themes raised in the film, but so is the meaning of Christmas and how a little bit of kindness can make a world of difference at the most wonderful time of the year.
WHALE FALL
In the middle of an Irish peat bog, the inexplicable remains of a humpback whale are discovered by two rural women. Drawn into the mystery of how and why it has appeared, they soon realise the whale is exerting its own magnetic force; summoning the ghosts of lifeforms and ecosystems obliterated in the name of ‘progress’. As the women explore its origins, they confront old divisions and differing views on the worlds gone before, and the worlds yet to come. Part ecological horror, part existentialist drama, Whale Fall is a striking meditation on the consequences of the so-called Anthropocene – our current era of human-induced planetary change. The film is directed by Patrick Hough & written by former Movies.ie spellchecker Owen Corrigan.
EILEEN
This pitch-perfect American period psychological thriller, with Thomasin McKenzie and Anne Hathaway, follows an unlikely and dangerous friendship between a young prison facility worker and her new glamorous blonde colleague.
Set during a bitter 1964 Massachusetts winter, young secretary Eileen becomes enchanted by the glamorous new counsellor at the prison where she works. Their budding friendship takes a twisted turn when Rebecca reveals a dark secret — throwing Eileen onto a sinister path.
THE HOLDOVERS
Double Oscar winner Alexander Payne reunites with actor Paul Giamatti in “The Holdovers”. Giamatti plays Paul Hunham, a curmudgeonly history professor at an elite New England boarding school tasked with staying on the school grounds over Christmas break, 1970, to keep watch over the boys who don’t have a place to go home to.
THE BIKERIDERS
A furious drama following the rise of a fictional 1960s Midwestern motorcycle club through the lives of its members starring Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, and Tom Hardy and directed by Jeff Nichols.