The sprawling buffet that is this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is a particularly full table, particularly if the discerning cineaste has a taste for Irish cinema. Seven films with ties to the Emerald Isle are tantalizing TIFFattendees and generating buzz in the blogosphere.
CLICK HERE for Brave New Hollywood’s recent coverage of TIFF 2012.
Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan star in Byzantium for director Neil Jordan, which TIFF programmers describe as a “deliciously depraved supernatural drama,” while What Richard Did is a coming-of-age drama featuring a mix of up-and-coming actors—Sam Keeley, Roisin Murphy, Jack Reynor—from writer Malcolm Campbell, who worked on the hit U.K. series Shameless and Skins. Both films made their world premieres at the fest.
Also on tap: Jump from Kieron J. Walsh, described by the Irish Film Board as a “modern urban fairytale”; political thriller Call Girl, a co-production with Norway and Sweden that is the feature debut of acclaimed director Mikael Marcimain; and feature-length documentaries Men at Lunch from Sean O’Cualain; and the alluringly titled The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology from Sophie Fiennes, a sequel to The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema (2006) that utilizes the filmmaker’s “inventive interpretation of moving pictures to examine ideology—the collective fantasies that shape our beliefs and practices.”
Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of Gods from Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side), an Irish-U.S. co-production, traces the pedophilia scandal in the Catholic Church from its roots to the present day.
James Hickey, Chief Executive of the Irish Film Board, praised the annual event as “one of the industry’s most prestigious and respective festivals. To have seven Irish films included in the lineup is a testament to the quality and the international appeal of Irish filmmaking today.”
CLICK HERE for Irish Film Board’s news on TIFF 2012 line up.