MEANWHILE, six of the films made here last year will have their Irish premieres at the Galway Film Fleadh, which runs from July 11th to 16th. The opening film will be the world premiere of The Last of the High Kings, David Keating's film of Ferdia MacAnna's novel. Produced by Tim Palmer and set in Dublin in 1977, it features Catherine O'Hara, Jared Leto, Gabriel Byrne, Christina Ricci, Colm Meaney and Stephen Rea. A two day Fleadh Film School on July 10th and 11th will explore the film's evolution from script to screen.
The fleadh's closing film will be Terry George's Some Mother's Son, an account of two women (played by Helen Mirren and Fionnuala Flanagan) with sons involved in the 1981 H-Block hunger strikes. The Irish premieres will also include Sue Clayton's The Disappearance of Finbar, scripted by Dermot Bolger; Gilles MacKinnon's Trojan Eddie, written by Billy Roche and starring Richard Harris and Stephen Rea; Boys and Men, a 40 minute psychological drama by Sean Hinds (who made The Pan Loaf; Geraldine Creed's The Sun, the Moon and the Stars with Jason Donovan, Angie Dickinson and Gina Moxley; and The Eliminator, a low budget, all action fantasy spoof directed by Enda Hughes.
The international programme in Galway will feature Michael Winterbottom's Thomas Hardy adaptation, Jude, with Christopher Eccleston and Kate Winslet; David O. Russell's Flirting With Disaster, which closed Cannes this year; Anjelica Huston's directing debut, Bastard Out of Carolina, which Ted Turner found too strong to broadcast on TNT, Paul Cox's Lust and Revenge from Australia; and Arthur Penn's South African prison drama Inside, with Eric Stoltz and Nigel Hawthorne.
The fleadh also promises programmes of documentaries, Brazilian cinema and romantic comedy, a tribute to British director Antonia Bird, a preview of new work from Telefis na Gaeilge, and on July 15th, an all day workshop on writing Father Ted. For further information, contact the fleadh on (091) 751655.
