It takes something really special to lure someone out on a cold winters evening and what could be more enticing than a film on the big screen, a glass of wine, and good company?
After a successful first season Athlone Film Club resumes for a new season. Anyone wishing to renew their membership or to join for the new season can come along to the Dean Crowe Theatre, Tuesday January 13 from 7.30pm. Forms can also be requested online by emailing [email protected].
Single membership is only €30 for the season, €50 for a couple, and special rates for students and OAP’s. This includes nine films and also complimentary wine in the bar before each screening.
The club whose inaugural season attracted over 130 members is hoping to build on its membership base and continue to attract new members while developing the club over the upcoming season.
The opening film of the season is sure to draw large audiences. My Brother is an Only Child (Mio fratelle e figlio unico ) is an engaging, funny, and witty meditation on Italy’s fascist inheritance. Based on Antio Pennacchi’s best selling novel , Il Fasciocomunista, set in the 60s, it follows the mirrored experiences of two politically-divided brothers from working-class Latina (the Mussolini –built town outside Rome ): awkward, interrogative Accio (Elio Germano ) and his older Casonova-skilled brother Manrico (Riccardo Scamarcio ). As mother’s favourite, Manrico gets even deeper involved with the revolunionary left, while the sharp-tongued contrarian Accio, expelled from his seminary, falls under the influence of dogmatic father-figure, Mario and his band of thuggish fascist aristocrats, occasioning fraternal punch ups on the picket lines and stretching the battling brothers’ mutual loyalty to the breaking point.
This is the first of a season of nine films that will delight and enthral audiences. The upcoming season encompasses a range of genres and film from all over the world including the French costume drama The Last Mistress; a whimsical comedy from the Lebanon Caramel; a fascinating docudrama from the US, Man on the Wire; and an epic drama comparable to the Lord of the Rings and Braveheart, Mongol. Not forgetting home grown films, on St Patrick’s Day the film club will screen the endearing and humorous Jigs and Reels and O’Donoghue’s Opera, a fitting tribute to the late Ronnie Drew.
Following the success of the screening of the Polar Express in December, it is anticipated that the film club will also develop a children’s film club in 2009. It is likewise expected that the Dean Crowe Theatre can be used as a facility to show films to local secondary schools to aid the development of the secondary school curriculum and forge local community links.
Under the chairperson of the Dean Crowe Trust , Ciaran Temple, a committee was elected to establish and develop the Film Club in the upcoming seasons.
Mr Temple commended the committee on the work done to date and stated that the club has many prospects for the future and reiterated the support of the Dean Crowe Theatre.
