Galway Town Hall
The weekend saw the annual Brown Bag pilgrimage to the Galway Film Fleadh. Brown Bag has had a presence at the festival for 16 years now. It was here at the screenings of our first short films in 1991 that Cathal & I decided that we would try to do this full time! It’s always a good time to kick back and watch some cool shorts and do a bit of socialising!
Dave Quin, me, Cathal & Brian
Winning director Orla McHardy with Brian Gilmore and Theresa Mayer
I checked out the new Irish animation on Sunday morning and was impressed to see that the strongest films seemed to come from Ballyfermot College this year, which bucked the previous years’ trend of Dun Laoghaire usually having the more polished films.
‘On The Quiet’ was very impressive, but the best student film for me was ‘Blip’ , which also got the ‘Best First Film Prize’ for Sean Mullen & Ben Harper. Well done lads!
Other good screenings for me was the Short Shorts program. The theme of the series was ‘musicals’, and it was highly entertaining. There were a few crackers among them including ‘Dental Breakdown’ & ‘ Moore Street Masala’, but the highlight for me was ‘Mr. Foley’ directed by D.A.D.D.Y.
Kate & Dave Quin with Nicky Phelan
Barry O'Donoghue, Tomm Moore & Paul Young
Lawyer Extraordinaire Brian Gormley with Theresa Mayer & Terence Mulligan from the Craic festival in NYC
The new round of Frameworks premiered on the Saturday and it was a very strong batch. Nicky Phelan ( Granny O’Grimm director!) was on the judging panel and I didn’t envy him the task of picking a winner from the tight field. David Quin was there with his film ‘T’was a Terrible Hard Work’, depicting the tough conditions of Tipperary miners back in the day. The new offering from Cartoon Saloon, Old Fangs , was visually gorgeous and I also enjoyed Donkey from Barley Films.
‘The Polish Language’ , directed by Alice Lyons & Orla McHardy, took me by surprise. I saw in the Film program that it described itself as a film-poem, and initially I was a little sceptical as the abstract handmade feel is something that is often tried but actually quite difficult to get right. As it turned out the film was really impressive and turned out to be the winner, so congrats to Alice & Orla and also to producer Steve Woods.
New Irish animation winners Alice Lyons with Producer Steve Woods
With heavy rain outside, Steve points the way to the rowing club!
The Rowing club!
chilling at the rowing club
Steve was one of the original founding members of the Galway Film Fleadh and a tireless promoter of Independent animation in Ireland so it was great to see him finally walk away with 1st prize… although I didn’t get to see him collect the prize as I was already on the train home
Brian catches up on sleep on the train home!
As usual there was a fair bit of socialising and merriment & looking forward to Galway next year, where I plan to have a short of my own in competition, wahey!
