Virgin Media Dublin International Film Festival 

 

The curtain will come down on the fully online 19^th Virgin Media Dublin International Film Festival this evening with the World Premiere of Rachel Carey’s hilarious black comedy Deadly Cuts, followed by an exclusive post show discussion with Rachel Carey and stars Angeline Ball, Shauna Higgins, Lauren Larkin, Pauline McLynn, Ericka Roe and Victoria Smurfit.

 

The screening was a double celebration for Carey, who was announced during the Festival as winner of the Aer Lingus Discovery Award, along with Burschi Wojnar, Hazel Doupeand Saileóg O’Halloran. 

 

Also announced on the Closing Night were the hotly anticipated Dublin Film Critics Circle (DFCC) Awards, crowning Apples as Best Film, with the Best Irish Film award going to Tadhg O’Sullivan’s To The Moon.

 

Speaking about the Awards, DFCC Chair Tara Brady said: "It's been my great privilige to collaborate with the festival and my fellow jurors this year, as we worked our merry way through a wonderful programme. At a moment when cinema is at a standstill, Gráinne and her team are fighting the good fight and winning."

 

Further DFCC accolades were awarded to: Lili Horvát (Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time) for Best Director; Joanna Scanlon (After Love) for Best Actress; Goran Bogdan (Father) for Best Actor; Lee IssacChung (Minari) for Best Screenplay and Viktor Kosakovskiy and Egil Håskjold Larsen (Gunda) for Best Cinematography. The Best Documentary title went to Acasa My Home, which was also the winner of the overall Festival Documentary Competition. 

 

The DFCC this year announced writer/director Ivan Kavanagh (Son) as recipient of the George Byrne Maverick Award, and actress Zofia Stafiej (I Never Cry) as recipient of the Michael Dwyer Discovery Award. Jury Awards were also given to actor Kyle Gallner (Dinner in America), writer/director Noah Hutton (Lapsis), writer/director Zoé Wittock (Jumbo) and writer/director Bryan Fogel (The Dissident).

Full awards details and recipients are available on www.diff.ie

 

This year’s festival outreach was amplified by a very special partnership with a group of extremely enthusiastic film writers and film critics. Co-ordinated by Sorcha Hyland on behalf of Young Irish Filmmakers, the Young Film Critics initiative aims to create more informal education space for young people to engage with international and youth-authored/classic and independent cinema (film and animation, including silent era). This year, the group of nearly 30 young people watched a selection of films from the programme and wrote up reviews as well as created podcasts on specific films. The group also participated in a writing workshop with Finn Halligan (chief film critic Screen Daily) as well as meeting with filmmakers Aleem Khan (After Love)  and Jerry Rothwell (The Reason I Jump). The Festival is delighted that the young people will share their work on the festival website.

 

Speaking about this year’s festival, Gráinne Humphreys, Virgin Media Dublin International Film Festival Director, said “This year’s event has surpassed my expectations in terms of numbers and reach and I’m delighted the programme has connected with new audiences across Ireland and around the world. It’s been a different way to both present and experience the festival, but as a team we have embraced the challenges and delivered a great programme with a wonderful line-up of guests. As we come to the end of an exhausting 12 days we will close on a high note with a really superb new Irish film Rachel Carey’s Deadly Cuts.”  

 

Niamh O’Driscoll, Head of Brand and Marketing, Virgin Media, said:

“Faced with the obvious challenges of the times we live in, the Virgin Media Dublin International Film Festival has more than just prevailed, it has triumphed. This festival is like no other and plays a key role in finding, supporting and nurturing Irish talent among our great actors, writers and directors, and projecting this great talent to a world audience. It’s an absolute credit to Festival Director Gráinne Humphreys, Managing Director Helen Hutton and their entire team for selecting such a diverse collection of local and international talent. Our warmest congratulations to the entire production team, organisers, friends, participants, and supporters who accompanied us from the beginning.

 

Virgin Media at the same time is thrilled to be supporting the Virgin Media Discovers short film competition, together with Screen Ireland, and on Virgin Media Box Office tonight (Sunday 14^th March at 8pm) award-winning director and screenwriter Lenny Abrahamson reveals the overall winning projects.  Both winners will share in a prize of €60,000 to produce a short film, which will broadcast on Virgin Media Television next autumn and a preview screening in conjunction with Virgin Media Dublin International Film Festival later in the year.”

 

The Festival would like to acknowledge the continuing support of the Arts Council and Screen Ireland.

 

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