The 36th edition of the Galway Film Fleadh will include more than 80 premieres on a number of themes when it takes place for five days beginning Thursday, July 9.
Screenings in the Town Hall Theatre and Pálás cinema will feature 20 world premieres, 11 European premieres and 52 Irish premieres from 45 countries, featuring 94 feature films in total.
“We have first time filmmakers alongside established filmmakers in a programme packed with drama, documentaries, experimental film and animation,” said Fleadh director Maeve McGrath who was keen to stress an increased complement of Irish language productions this year, including six feature films.
“This year, we introduce a new strand for cinephiles called ‘Cinefleadh Collection’ with films that we don’t want you to miss and if you haven’t had enough of the football from EURO 24, we have a strand of football themed films called ‘The Beautiful Game’, so plenty for all audiences to enjoy.”
Of the 32 Irish features in the programme, Irish language film features prominently including the Irish premiere of KNEECAP; Fidil Ghorm which follows 10-year Molly trying to wake her Dad from a coma; Froggie, a bi-lingual film about brotherhood, and Iarsmaí, which examines how museums are decolonising their collections.
World premieres include Gleann, a love letter to a people and a place; At Sea, a hypnotic, hallucinatory reverie at the edge of liminal space; Are We One, about Jesuit Zen master, Robert Kennedy; Laoch: Defy the Odds delves into the extraordinary life of Thomas “Tommy” McCague; Amongst The Wolves shines a spotlight on the dangers of homelessness, Mrs Robinson tells Mary Robinson’s story, in her own words; Dead Man’s Money is a dark comedy with an inheritance in the balance; music is the link between father and son in Dreamtown and a young boy finds friendship in an unexpected place in The Wise Guy. In HOME: Zak Moradi's Story we follow Zak’s journey from a Kurdish refugee camp to becoming a pillar of the community in Ireland.
Irish premieres include TerraForma; Afternoon in June; Housewife of the Year which remembers a different era in Irish life, and we watch a troubled teen in Kathleen Is Here. The International premiere of Savage Beauty: The World’s Greatest Light Installation follows Finnish light artist Kari Kola, as he attempts the impossible: building the world’s largest light installation on a Galway mountainside.
The World Cinema strand with a prize fund of €3,000 includes the winner of the Sundance world cinema prize Sujo, set in the isolated Mexican countryside where the hero finds that fulfilling his father’s destiny may be inescapable. Winner of the 2024 Berlinale Panorama Audience Award, Memories of a Burning Body follows three women, raised in a repressive era where sexuality was taboo and The Old Bachelor, running at 192 minutes, follows two brothers, trapped in an abusive household, who hatch a deadly plan to escape.
With the finals of EURO 24 taking place the week of the Fleadh, there is a football-themed strand of films called The Beautiful Game with stories of passionate Genoa fans in Football Fever: Genoa Love Affair; we meet the team who were the basis of Brazil's first women's football team in The First Women; and an Icelandic underdog team beating the odds in The Home Game.
A new programme called CineFleadh Collection for cinephiles includes India Donaldson’s Good One; silent film, Gondola; director Haroula Rose’s, All Happy Families; Ghostlight features a father recovering from grief helped by local community theatre and Brats brings us the story of the so-called ‘Brat Pack’ with legendary 80’s actor/director Andrew McCarthy in attendance.
The Architecture on Film strand continues with films that explore the world around us, and the Fleadh’s Country of Focus for 2024 is Palestine with films made in, and about Palestine.
Films in the Defender programme provoke discussion on themes around social inequality, war and the battle for land rights, while What The Fleadh?! Programme returns with a kooky collection of genre cinema.
The ever-popular Music strand of films includes the Irish premieres of Omar and Cedric – If This Ever Gets Weird, Born To Be Wild – The Story of Steppenwolf and the world premiere of Nick Kelly’s The Song Cycle which combines music and sustainability.
The Fleadh will screen over 100 Irish and international shorts, and include master classes and symposiums.
See galwayfilmfleadh.com for full programme.
