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| Sophie Heidman's The Education Of Jane Cumming Photo: Courtesy of Dinard Festival of British and Irish Cinema |
The opening film Once Upon A Time In A Cinema reflects artistic director Dominique Green’s passion for the moving image in all its guises. Set in a picture house in 1980s Ireland the film’s main character is an exhibitor who has to confront his past and the challenges of the future. Colin Morgan plays the cinema owner who has to cope with a chaotic Friday night screening against the background of a shady deal of a sale to unscrupulous politician. The film is directed by David Gleeson who made The Front Line and Cowboys & Angels.
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| Claire Foy in H Is For Hawk Photo: Courtesy of Dinard Festival of British and Irish Film |
In the full programme unveiled today five films will compete for the Hitchcock d’Or and other prizes under a jury presided over by actor Amira Cassar and whose ranks include Call My Agent star Thibault de Montalembert, British actor Ben Hardy, French star Zoé Adjani, and producer Stephen Woolley (a long-time supporter of the event).
Titles in the competition comprise H Is For Hawk by Philippa Lowthorpe and starring Claire Foy as a woman grieving the loss of her father; I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning by Clio Barnard, about five lifelong friends from Birmingham and presented earlier in the year in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight; Rose Of Nevada by Cornish film-maker Mark Jenkin, an enigmatic drama steeped in loss, memory and the unsettling rhythms of coastal life; and Skintown by Kieron J Walsh, recently garlanded at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and set in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, in the summer of 1994 and named after the town's tough-love nickname. The final competition film, The Education Of Jane Cumming, by Sophie Heidman, is a period drama about two women running a girls’ boarding school in 19th century Edinburgh in the face of prejudice about the nature of their relationship.
Competing for the prize for new talent (awarded by the local newspaper Ouest-France) are four films: Wasteman, the directorial debut of Cal McMau, examining how a convict’s chances for early prison release come under threat from his ruthlessly violent new cellmate; Molly Manners' comedy Extra Geography, about boarding school friends in England; Lady by Olive Nwosu, set and shot in Lagos, Nigeria, with its central character the eponymous Lady, a fiercely independent young cab driver and The Son And The Sea by Stroma Cairns, a first feature which chronicles the lives of three very different young men in a tender coming of age tale.
Other highlights in the various selections include Everybody Digs Bill Evans by Irish filmmaker Grant Gee, focused on the tortured US jazz legend Bill Evans, played by Norway's Anders Danielsen Lie and Welsh language drama Fires Of The Moon, by Chris Forster, based on the book by Caradog Pritchard and set in a 1930s slate mining community in North Wales.
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| David Jonsson and Tom Blythe in Wasteman, directed by Cal McCau Photo: Courtesy of Dinard Festival of British and Irish Film |
Guests lining up to attend include filmmakers Iain and Jane Pollard to present Broken English, a bold and genre defying documentary portrait of the inimitable singer, songwriter and icon Marianne Faithfull with Tilda Swinton and George MacKay.
This edition of the Festival marks the conclusion of Dominique Green’s tenure as artistic director as the Festival’s covic organisers attempt to deal with an accumulated deficit of some £214,480 (250,000 euros). Before going forward and making any decisions about its future a study has been commissioned to look at the event in depth and to consider its role in the film festival firmament.
The event has become a crucial showcase for independent British films in France and continues to champion emerging British filmmakers, fostering cultural exchange amid shifting economic and political landscapes and maintaining cross-channel film relations in a post-Brexit era.
In a series of gloomy headlines in the local media the town authorities said the object of the study was to “bring a new dynamism to the Festival by seeking expertise which could lend objectivity” to the way forward and to justify its expenditure from the public purse. The global budget of the event over five days has been estimated at £600,548 (700,000 euros), and it attracts a loyal audience of 21,000.
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| Tilda Swinton in Broken English Photo: Courtesy of Dinard Festival of British and Irish Cinema |
“In previous years we questioned ‘Who do we think we are?’, we answered ‘We are many different things.’ Now we ask ‘Who does a film belong to?’ Is it the Director? Producer? Actor? Technicians? Or even the Financers? All merit recognition but I would like to suggest that it is you, the audience, that faithfully support your local cinemas and this festival. Thank you for your support over the years and long may it continue.”
The mayor of the town Arnaud Salmon also enthused: “Culture and Dinard share a long and wonderful history. The Dinard Festival of British & Irish Film fits perfectly into this history, having been a highlight in our town for 37 years now! Such remarkable longevity deserves to be celebrated …”
The Dinard Festival of British and Irish Film runs from 7 to 11 October.
