Originally published in Movies Plus Magazine
Calling all film buffs… The Jameson Dublin International Film Festival is back, this year there’s twice the amount of movies showing over 11 days – that’s a whopping 114 films.. How will you decide what to go and see? We’ve picked some of the highlights below…
Timbuktu
The festival opens with the World Premiere of Alan Gilsenan’s Timbuktu in the presence of Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, Mr John O’Donoughue T.D. The story follows a guy and a girl who go to Algeria to find his lover/her brother who they fear has been kidnapped.
Osama
Opening the Xtravision Irish Premiere Season, this Irish co-production recently picked up a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language film. The film is the first feature to be made in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. It was shot in Kabul and looks at the Taliban’s control of Afghanistan.
The Missing
Ron Howard’s follow up to A Beautiful Mind is set in 19th century New Mexico and tells of a broken family and the search for their kidnapped daughter. Stars Tommy Lee Jones, Cate Blanchett and Val Kilmer.
The Cat’s Meow
What happened to Marion Davies on that yachting party? Kirsten Dunst and Eddie Izzard team up in the semi-true story of a Hollywood murder that took place during a star studded gathering aboard Willoiam Randolph Heart’s yacht in 1924.
Battle Royale II
Sequel to the cult Japanese movie Battle Royale. Original director Kinji Fukasaku died during the making of this follow up and directorial duties were continued by his son Kenta Fukasaku.
Blind Flight
The festival’s centrepiece Gala is the much anticipated dramatisation of the imprisonment, friendship and release of Brian Keenan and John McCarthy. The flight of Brian Keenan and John McCarthy is brought to life by John Furse in Blind Flight and will be attended by Ian Hart and Linus Roache as well as Keenan, McCarthy and Furse.
Mambo Italiano
Canadian comedy that mixes the best parts of My Big, Fat Greek Wedding with The Birdcage, in which the son of Italian immigrants to Canada struggles to find the best way to reveal to his conservative parents that he is gay.
Monster
Charlize Theron received an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Aileen Wournos, America’s first female serial killer. The story is based on the true events of the highway prostitute executed for killing seven men in the state of Florida during the 1980s.
The Halo Effect
Closing this year’s festival is Lance Daly’s The Halo Effect, in the presence of stars Stephen Rea, Kerry Condon, Simon Delaney, Patrick Bergin, John Kavanagh, Fiona O’Shaughnessy and Mick Lally as well as the film’s producer, John Kelleher. Other prized guests expected include Charlize Theron, Eddie Izzard, Huey Morgan, Steven Berkoff, David Caffrey, Peter Greenaway and Jeremy Thomas.
Bloom
Just in time for the 2004 centenary of Bloomsday, comes this new adaptation of James Joyce’s literary classic Ulysses starring Stephen Rea as Leopold Bloom, Angeline Ball as Molly Bloom and Hugh O’Connor as Stephen Dedalus.
Cowboys and Angels
Set in Limerick, Davis Gleeson’s comedy tells of a civil servant who gets more than he bargained for with he moves into an apartment with a gay fashion student and soon finds himself on the catwalk.
