The Virgin Media Dublin International Film Festival 2019 (Virgin Media DIFF 2019) has already unveiled its full line-up featuring over 125 events across 12 days.
The festival will shine a spotlight on all types of cinema, ranging from Irish to international over every genre. Taking place between February 20 and March 3, here are Travel Ireland Magazine’s recommendations on what to see. Be sure to snap up tickets on DIFF’s site here before they are sold out.
When Hitchcock Met O’Casey – Feb 21
This documentary explores the collaboration between one of Ireland’s most noted playwrights and cinema’s greatest directors for the 1930 film adaptation of Juno and the Paycock. Featuring extensive, incisive interviews with family members, academics, filmmakers and actors, it tells the story of how these two iconic figures met and the legacy of their work together.
Leto – Feb 22
Focused on real-life Soviet rock star and pioneering musician Viktor Tsoi, this black and white feature explores the passionate but clandestine music scene in early 1980s Leningrad. There a love triangle emerges between Tsoi, his protege and his wife.
Dub Daze – Feb 23
Described as a Valentine to Dublin, Dub Daze is a coming-of-age collection of stories set in the north, south, and centre of Dublin city. Dan and Baz are two friends looking for kicks on their last day of school; Cork medical students Jack and Seán arrive in the capital to find their way amongst Ireland’s affluent youth; while songwriter Fi struggles to break through the cut-throat Dublin music scene.
Dark Lies the Island – Feb 27
Irish author Kevin Barry is set to make the transition to screenwriter, with Dark Lies the Island, directed by Ian Fitzgibbon (Moone Boy, Perrier’s Bounty). Adapting one of his own short stories, it centres on a family feud in a small Irish town over the course of a week. Featuring an impressive cast of Irish stars – Charlie Murphy, Moe Dunford, Pat Shortt, Peter Coonan and Tommy Tiernan – DIFF festival director Grainne Humphreys described it as ‘a hallucinogenic black comedy of the darkest kind’, calling it ‘Killnaskully meets Twin Peaks’ before stating: “Once seen you will never be the same again.”
Ash is Purest White – Feb 28
Palme d’Or competitor at last year’s Cannes, gangster thriller / melodrama Ash is Purest White takes place in an industrial city in China. There, a young dancer falls in love with a mobster. When a fight breaks out between rival gangs, she uses a gun to protect her boyfriend and is sent to prison for five years. Leaving jail years later, she sets out to find him
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