Irish director Pat Collins latest film, The Dance, will have its world premiere at the prestigious BFI London Film Festival where it will compete for the acclaimed Grierson Award for best documentary.
This year the BFI London Film Festival will take place from October 6-17.
The Dance follows the staging of a new international dance and theatre work (MÁM) by the acclaimed choreographer Michael Keegan-Dolan from the first day of rehearsal to the opening night performance.
The Dance is a fiercely true and beautiful account of a magical process of work, brought to life by the inimitable Pat Collins (Song of Granite, Silence). Break Out Pictures will release The Dance in Irish cinemas in 2022.
“It’s a great honour to have our film The Dance premiere at the BFI London Film Festival,” said director Tom Collins. “This film is observational in the most literal sense. Every day over the course of eight weeks, we filmed in a community hall in West Kerry with choreographer Michael Keegan-Dolan and 12 dancers, the s t a r g a z e collective and Cormac Begley.”
“We were given a rare insight into an intense period of collaboration as they rehearsed,” Collins added. “It was a privilege to observe at such close proximity the gradual emergence of a work of art. There is something very moving about witnessing someone lost in their own work.”
MÁM brought the virtuoso concertina player Cormac Begley, the European musical collective s t a r g a z e and twelve international dancers to the remote Dingle Peninsula in Ireland and is a unique confluence between soloist and ensemble, classical and traditional, the local and the universal.
The show went on to be reviewed rapturously, toured internationally and was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best production in London. As well as Dublin, it has been performed in theatres' in London, Australia and New Zealand.
A South Wind Blows and Harvest Films Production with backing from Screen Ireland, Teaċ Daṁsa, and RTÉ, The Dance will release in Irish cinemas next year.