The queue lengthened outside the door of Dakota in anticipation of a party. Word was out that the Corkonians were up in Dublin for the day en masse to launch the 46th Murphy's Cork Film Festival.
Cork film director Ger Philpott will have a short film in the festival, called Bβndearg ar ghlas. Elaine Cassidy stars in Disco Pigs, which opens the festival. "It's like Romeo and Juliet mixed with Clockwork Orange," she said. Next she's off to Canada to star in a film called The Bay of Love and Sorrows, with Tim Southham directing.
Kirsten Sheridan, director of Disco Pigs, and daughter of Jim Sheridan, says of her film: "It's a love story about two inseparable, dangerous, insecure people."
Audrey O'Reilly, from Cork city, is director of Clare sa SpΘir, an Irish short film which will premiΦre at the festival. Petrol Country Blues will also be shown at Cork, but will open first in Belfast on Friday, according to producer Kathrina Shine. Shine - whose late father, Finbar Shine, hailed from Cork - is already busy on another film, Next, at Ardmore Studios.
Mick Hannigan, Cork Film Festival director, says "the festival takes place in a difficult and terrible context" where all are "fearful for the future". Now, he says, "imagery itself is problematic", citing the Vienna Film Festival, which has already withdrawn a range of films because of "ambiguity" of imagery.
The festival runs from October 7th to 14th.