The 59th edition of the Cork Film Festival runs from today until Sunday 16th November and Today FM is delighted to be the national radio partner of the event.
Opening the festival at Cork Opera House this evening is Australian drama film Charlie’s Country, directed by Rolf de Heer and starring legendary Australian indigenous actor David Gulpilil. The film is Australia’s entry for Best Foreign Film at the next Academy Awards.
The closing night gala is one of the greatest cinematic miracles ever created - Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. The film has been recently restored and released on a 4k digital print by the British Film Institute. Combined with the magnificent setting of the Cork Opera House, this will make for splendid and memorable viewing.
The Music Film Gala is Peter Strickland and Nick Fenton’s Björk: Biophilia Live (Cork Opera House on Sat 8th at 6.45pm).
The Irish Gala is the world premiere of Rob and Ronan Burke’s Standby, starring Brian Gleeson (The Stag) and Jessica Paré (Mad Men) (Cork Opera House on Sat 8th at 9pm).
One of the highlights of the festival is the Irish premiere of Disney’s new feature film Big Hero 6, which will be screened on 16th November at 10.30am. Big Hero 6 is one of the most hotly anticipated forthcoming releases, and comes from the team behind the hugely popular Frozen. It’s an action-packed comedy adventure about the special bond that develops between Baymax, a plus-sized inflatable robot, and child prodigy Hiro Hamada. When a devastating event befalls the city of San Fransokyo and catapults Hiro into the midst of danger, he turns to Baymax and his close friends. Determined to uncover the mystery, Hiro transforms his friends into a band of high-tech heroes called “Big Hero 6”.
Check out the trailer for this year’s festival here:
Cork Film Festival 2014 Trailer from Cork Film Festival on Vimeo.
A series of special events include:
An Irishman Abroad Live (Cork Opera House - 4pm, Sun 9 Nov): IFTA winning Irish actor, comedian and entertainer Pat Shortt is joined by comedian Jarlath Regan for a special one-off episode of the series.
Come All You Dreamers (Cork Opera House - 9pm, Sun 9 Nov): the full 2009 concert film of Christy Moore and Declan Sinnott at Barrowland, Glasgow will be screened, with a live introduction by Christy Moore, hosted by Other Voices’ Philip King. The event is followed by a free, first come, first served, screening of Philip King’s film about Christy Moore – Christy - in the Triskel, introduced by Philip King.
This year the festival is launching Illuminate, a four part film and discussion series, supported by the HSE and Arts and Minds, which looks at mental health. Multiple Emmy Award-winning Canadian documentary filmmaker John Kastner will be appearing at the festival with Out of Mind, Out of Sight (the follow up to his 2013 documentary NCR: Not Criminally Responsible). The documentary is a powerful portrait of patients and staff at the Brockville Mental Health Centre, a forensic psychiatric hospital for people who have committed violent crimes.
The Festival is packed with big film and movie stars. Highlights include:
- John Ridley’s All Is By My Side - OutKast’s André Benjamin stars as Jimi Hendrix in the biopic of the rock legend
- Tommy Lee Jones’s Cannes Palme d’Or nominated epic Western The Homesman with Hilary Swank, James Spader and Meryl Streep
- Morten Tyldum’s The Imitation Game with Keira Knightley, Charles Dance and Benedict Cumberbatch
- Michaël R. Roskam’s The Drop with Tom Hardy and James Gandolfini
- Jason Reitman’s cross-generational comedy drama Men, Women and Children with Adam Sandler and Jennifer Garner
- Denis Villeneuve’s intense psychological thriller Enemy which stars Jake Gyllenhaal
Full details of the programme are available from corkfilmfest.org
