The Fastnet Film Festival is up and running in the picturesque seaside village of Schull in West Cork.
It opened on Wednesday evening with a screening of The Secret Scripture - followed by a Q&A with Jim Sheridan, Lesa Thurman, Pauline Cotter and Geraldine Macalinden - and by the time the curtain comes down on Sunday, May 28th, they will have screened over 350 plus short films, both documentaries and features, from Ireland and abroad.
Part of the charm of the festival, now in its ninth iteration, is that it takes place in Schull, a location far removed from the glitz of the red carpets of Cannes or Tribeca, somewhere that doesn't even boast a permanent cinema screen.
"It was a curiosity that we all had over the actual craft of film-making," Maurice Seezer, music in film programmer for the festival, told RTÉ's Arena. "We were a group of enthusiastic, film-minded individuals in Schull. And we had all contributed at various levels to an arts festival.
Listen: Maurice Seezer talks to Arena
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
"It was a time when digital media was becoming ubiquitous, and we were so far away from the whole centre... it was a time of the economic crisis and it just all seemed to come together in our heads as something we needed to do."
A gathering for established and aspiring filmmakers, Fastnet was established to celebrate the craft of the short film, and provide a place where talent could be encouraged to realise their dream of making movies.
To facilitate this there are numerous workshops, round-table discussions and seminars with luminaries such as David Puttnam (Chariots of Fire, The Killing Fields), Lenny Abrahamson (Adam & Paul, Frank, Room) and Stephen Frears (The Queen, Philomena, The Snapper), where their expertise and experience of telling stories for the big screen can be mined by the next generation of filmmakers.
.@neilleyden '#mojo is about trying to create Irish content, a sense of Irishness, Irish people creating Irish content' pic.twitter.com/yhMwcZGRi5
— Fastnet Film Fest (@SchullShorts) May 25, 2017
With Schull not having a cinema, the organisers are creative in how they show the films around the village.
"We show the competition films in the village hall, pubs, restaurants, shops, galleries and on the sides of buildings," says programmer Gwenda Young. "We ask the question ‘What is a cinema, anyway?’ and look for answers in every corner of the village."
They also have a distributed cinema server network, which is an innovative way of allowing anyone in the village with wifi to login and stream any of the entries via their laptops, smart-phones or tablets over the course of the event.
"It is one of those particularly beautiful parts of the country," says Young, "and it was very much part of our mindset that we wanted filmmakers to come to West Cork and experience it for themselves."
5 Weekend Highlights at Fastnet 2017:
Friday 26th
The Program - Palace Cinema @ 20:00
Directed by Stephen Frears, this thriller tracks the rise and fall of cycling pariah Lance Armstrong.
Starring Chris O’Dowd and Dustin Hoffman, we see how Armstrong’s team developed the most sophisticated doping programme in cycling, winning 7 Tour De France’s as a result, before being taken down by the work of journalist David Walsh (O'Dowd).
Saturday 27th
Pat McCabe Reading - Savoy Cinema @ 12:00 – 13:00
Author Pat McCabe’s celebrated novels The Butcher Boy and Breakfast on Pluto have been made into films. Hear him read from his works.
Gala Event: The Goose Woman - Palace Cinema @ 19:00
This finely restored print of the 1925 film starring Louise Dresser will be introduced by film historian Kevin Brownlow, and accompanied by a live score from BAFTA-award winning composer Carl Davis.
Crashlands Long Island at Sundown
As a part of their 20th anniversary tour, the Crash Ensemble are doing a sundown performance of their contemporary classical music on the west pier at Long Island. Not to be missed.
The Young Offenders film goes back to it's roots at Fastnet Film Festival after mass this Sunday 12 noon #theyoungoffenders @SchullShorts pic.twitter.com/9csDflu09y
— The Young Offenders (@TYOMovie) May 24, 2017
Sunday 28th
The Young Offenders - Palace Cinema @ 12:00
This Irish sensation was the quickest homegrown movie to gross €1,000,000 at the domestic box office; it has been commissioned by RTÉ 2 for a follow up TV show.
The hilarious hit is set around these parts of West Cork, so it’s the perfect place to watch it. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Peter Foott, producer Julie Ryan and actor Paschal Scott.
