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Film Fleadh again to showcase emerging Irish talent

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

By Michael Gray

Despite a downturn in quality from the Irish film industry in recent times, the New York Film Fleadh continues on its mission to showcase emerging Irish film talent from the homeland and the diaspora. Now in its fourth year, the festival gets under way on Thursday at Cinema Village and runs for four nights, with afternoon screenings on Saturday and Sunday.

The top draw at this year’s festival is likely to be Kirsten Sheridan’s debut feature, “Disco Pigs,” based on Enda Walsh’s hit play of the same name. The film stars up-and-coming talents Elaine Cassidy and Cillian Murphy, playing an antisocial teenage couple who share the same birthdate and worldview, and a common language of their own devising. Their defenses against the world around them begin to come apart as their 17th birthday approaches, with violent consequences for both of them.

Casey impressed international critics three years ago with her performance opposite Bob Hoskins in “Felicca’s Journey,” a chilling drama based on the William Trevor book, and is one of Ireland’s most highly rated young actors. She will make a personal appearance at the screening on Sunday.

The established actors of Ireland are also represented at the Fleadh, in the form of Adrian Dunbar and Star Trek’s Colm Meany, in Goran Paskaljevic’s “How Harry Became A Tree.” Meany takes a sidestep from his thriving mainstream career to play an indie role as a disgruntled small farmer in the Ireland of 1924. The Civil War is over, but Meany’s character has no intention of decommissioning his prewar grievances — his main preoccupation in life is the hatred he nurtures for local pub owner George O’Flaherty, the wealthiest man in their village. In keeping with modern Ireland’s ever-expanding multi-cultural tendencies, the film is a French/Italian/Irish co-production, written and directed by Serbian-born filmmaker Paskaljevic, and based on an ancient Chinese folktale.

Irish music, more prominent than ever on the international stage, continues to yield rich material for our documentary filmmakers. This year’s Fleadh features “Freedom Highway: Songs Of Resistance,” focusing on music as a weapon against oppression, with contributions from Bono, Elvis Costello and Tom Waits, and a double bill about two of Ireland’s best-loved legends of the punk era. “Teenage Kicks” takes us to Derry, birthplace of The Undertones, Ireland’s top purveyors of pop-noise classics in the early 1980s. Ageless DJ John Peel, who championed the band’s early singles on the BBC, provides the narrative on this visit to their hometown to see what made the willfully untrendy Undertones such enduring favorites worldwide.

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“If I Should Fall From Grace” hearkens back to the same era, but at a different musical tempo, to present a candid portrait of Shane MacGowan, the infamously self-destructive singer/songwriter. The film traces his roots from rural Tipperary to urban England, where the young Shane harnessed the folk melodies of his youth to the frenetic energy of punk to form The Pogues. MacGowan is scheduled to appear, but his actual live appearances are far outnumbered these days by his no-shows, so don’t hold your breath.

Film shorts by Irish newcomers precede the main event at each of the screenings. If you show up early you can catch the Oscar-nominated “Give Up Yer Auld Sins,” a hilarious animation of recordings made with inner-city Dublin schoolchildren in the 1960s, and “Coolockland,” a surreal and irreverent take on modern Irish history that pitches James Joyce against Jesus. The bizarre short flew in under the radar in the government-sponsored “Short Cuts” series made for Irish TV last year, and is far superior to the bland product typically favored by the Film Board.

A compilation of seven award-winning shorts opens the Sunday screening, in which the main feature is “Month’s Mind,” a tribute to FDNY chaplain Fr. Mychal Judge, who lost his life in the Sept. 11 catastrophe.

Note that with the exception of the opening night screening at Cinema Village, all the other films will be shown at the NYU Cantor Center at 36 East 8th St. in Manhattan. To find out screening times and dates, log on to www.FilmFleadh.com. For more information on Irish films, visit www.IrelandOnFilm.com.

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