The 4th Junior Galway Film Festival will run from the 11th - 14th November 1998 at the Town Hall Theatre.
The festival will include educational screenings of Roman Polanski's excellent adaptation of Shakespheare's barbarous play 'Macbeth'. Lisbon is the setting for Joaoa Botelho's visually stunning black and white screen adaptation of Dicken's classic novel 'Hard Times' (Tempos Dificeis, Este Tempo). The Film Institute of Ireland presents the next screening in it's cinema in the classroom series in association with The Irish Times with Tim Burton's modern day classic 'Edward Scissorhands', starring Johnny Depp, Diane Wiest and Vincent Price in his last role. There will also be a chance to see Burton's wonderful first short animation 'Vincent' which precedes the screening. 'Macbeth' and 'Edward Scissorhands' screenings are accompanied by educational talks and study guides for teachers.
Joe O'Byrne's 'Pete's Meteor' featuring Brenda Fricker and Mike Myers deals with the story of Micky, a tough twelve year old and his younger brother and sister, who, when a meteor lands in their backyard, are convinced it has been sent down to them by their dead parents (who they believe live up in the stars), with adventurous results. Also showing are the first three films in the Oscailt scheme funded by Teilifís na Gaeilge and Bord Scannán na hÉireann.
The Festival will also feature a first look at the 'Mystic Knights of Tír na nÓg' series which has been shooting in Ardmore Studios for the past year. With two short programmes 'Legend of the Ancient Scroll' where the discovery of an ancient scroll leads young Rohan, a druid's apprentice, on a quest via the fairy underworld of Tír na nÓg to bring peace between Kells (King Conchubar) and Temra (Queen Maeve) and 'Tír na nÓg' where Rohan, his friend Angus, Ivar, a foreign Prince and Deirdre, Princess of Kells, quest together and meet King Fin Varra of the Little People who tests them to prove their worthiness. He gives them magical weapons and the promise of help to find the Dragon of Dare.
'Colors Straight Up' is a powerful documentary set in LA which follows the lives of a group of Black and Hispanic kids who, with the help of a team of idealistic Hollywood professionals, present a performance of Watts Side Story. 'Colors Straight Up' was nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in 1998. Alain Berliner's sensitive and entertaining portrayal of a young boy who dreams of being a girl in 'Ma Vie En Rose' also screens.
The Irish Language Screenings from the Oscailt initiative includes Paul Mercier's 'Lipservice' set in a North Dublin Community School, the day of the oral Irish exams. It is a bizarre day where everyone is speaking a language with which they don't communicate. A student's get rich quick scam to record Irish rivers to sell to Irish Americans unearths a prophesy that the end of the world is nigh in Edel O'Brian's 'Aqua'. Dearbhla Walsh's 'Cosa Nite' is a thriller of double cross, greed, adultery and a murder on misty boglands.
Following the screening of his film 'A Very Unlucky Leprechaun' Brian Kelly will run a hands-on workshop for aspiring young film-makers. There will be a scratch animation workshop on Saturday 14th November where participants will scratch their own cartoons onto 16mm film and watch them on the big screen.
There will be a special film & TV studio tour for a behind the scenes look at what really goes on. There are two tours to Teilifis na Gaeilge Television Studios and Concorde Anois Film Studios on Wednesday 11th and Thursday12th November catering for up to fifteen people.
For further details and booking contact:
Junior Galway Film Festival,
Cluain Mhuire,
Monivea Road,
Galway.
Tel: +353 91 771 726
Fax: +353 91 770 746
Email: gafleadh@iol.ie
Michael McMahon 12.11.98
