The Wicklow Film Festival is back at the Mermaid Arts Centre for a weekend of screenings and discussions between September 19 – 21.
Originally founded by Wicklow artist Brigid O’Brien, this year’s festival is a collaboration between the Mermaid Arts Centre and Noel Mac Aoidh, Head of the Film Department at BIFE (Bray Institute of Further Education). The theme for this year’s festival is Turning Points. Six filmmakers and experts of cinema – Mac Aoidh, Janna Kemperman (Fair City), Karla Healion (Lost in France) Kate McCoullough (The Farthest), Michael Donnelly (Dublin Oldschool) and Sal Stapleton (Through the Storm) will each present a movie that affected their lives and helped fashion their careers.
Screenings will include Blade Runner: The Final Cut, the definitive edition of Ridley Scott’s legendary sci-fi starring Harrison Ford. He plays a detective tasked with hunting down rogue replicant androids (fronted by the late Rutger Hauer) in a dystopian future.
Other cult classics being shown at the festival are Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks!, the acclaimed director’s star-studded tribute to 50’s and 60’s science-fiction films, as well as Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous, a coming-of-age story about a young American music journalist navigating the rock and roll scene of the 70s.
Rounding out the screenings are Persepolis, a French-Iranian adult animated film that follows a young girl as she comes of age against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution; Hoop Dreams, an intimate portrayal of two inner-city teenagers pursuing their dreams of NBA glory; and The Fall, a tale of five mythical heroes told by an injured stuntman to his fellow hospital patient.
All screenings will take place at the Mermaid Arts Centre. Speaking about the festival, artistic director for the venue Niamh O’Donnell said in a statement: “With the glamour of the film industry it’s easy to be distracted and forget the intense power of film. Film holds the possibility not just to transport us to other worlds but also to have an intensely transformative effect.”
“Almost all of us have seen a film that fundamentally changed and altered our outlook and opinions. Films tell us a story, but it can be those stories that shed light on issues, narrate history, expose injustices and initiate social change.”
To purchase tickets for the screenings and for more information, visit www.mermaidartscentre.ie/
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