Dublin's biggest, brashest movie star, Colin Farrell, was the guest of honour last night at the launch of a new film festival for his native city.
Farrell, whose meteoric career rise has taken him in a few years from supporting roles in the TV series Ballykissangel to multi-million dollar paydays on Hollywood's biggest action blockbusters, launched the inaugural Jameson Dublin International Film Festival at a reception in one of the city's newest "style bars", Traffic, on Lower Abbey Street.
The Castleknock-born actor will attend the screening of his latest film, The Recruit, in which he stars opposite Al Pacino, and take part in a public interview during the festival, which will screen 66 films from 30 countries from March 6th to 13th at the Screen, Savoy and Irish Film Centre cinemas.
Other guests confirmed for the event include actors Javier Bardem and Laura Linney, British directors Alan Parker and Michael Winterbottom (whose film about Afghan refugees, In This World, won the top award at this year's Berlin Film Festival and will be the opening film in Dublin) and French film-maker Claire Denis, a season of whose films will be shown.
Irish directors Jim Sheridan, Damien O'Donnell and Thaddeus O'Sullivan will also introduce their new films.
The festival lives up to its "international" title, including films from as far afield as Iceland, New Zealand, Tadjikistan and Thailand, with a particular emphasis on new Asian cinema and films in the Spanish language.
The major Oscar contender The Hours will receive its Irish premiere, along with the controversial and highly successful Mexican film The Crimes of Father Amaro.
The Dublin International Film Festival is a new festival, with no connection to the similarly-named Dublin Film Festival, which has not run since 2001 due to financial difficulties. However, The Irish Times film correspondent, Michael Dwyer, who co-founded the previous festival in 1986, is programming the new event.
"This is a festival for the people of Dublin," he said yesterday, "and for all those cinemagoers - from all parts of Ireland or abroad - who have the time and the inclination to immerse themselves in the event. We are confident that there will be great interest as soon as advance booking opens tomorrow."
The festival box office opens today at 33 Eden Quay, beside Liberty Hall, and can be contacted at 01 872 1122
