If you want to escape stupid green top hats and vomiting morons on St Patrick’s Day, then head to beautiful Kerry, where the increasingly impressive Dingle Film Festival runs from March 17th until March 20th.
The opening film will be Geoff Wonfor's quasi-documentary We'll Always Have Dingle, which translates scenes from classic movies into Irish. Maureen O'Hara will be attending a screening of Sé Merry Doyle's Dreaming the Quiet Man, a study of her most famous film, and the prestigious Gregory Peck Award will go to flashy French maestro Jean-Jacques Beineix.
Gnomically dedicating itself to "being here", the festival will also host a screenwriting panel, featuring a sturdy array of talented scribes. Those expected to share their expertise include Mark O'Halloran, writer of Adam and Paul; Marc Flanagan, the Emmy Award- winning talent behind The Tracy Ullman Show; and Lisa Albert, producer and writer on Mad Men.
The inappropriately named Maurice Galway founded the festival four years ago, and in the interim it has grown into a busy, busy event. Previous guests have included Gabriel Bryne, Sarah Miles, Alan Parker, Jim Sheridan and Saoirse Ronan. The centre of the festival remains the historic Phoenix Cinema, a rare independent venue that, some years ago, was used for screening rushes during the shooting of Far and Away. Don’t hold that against it.
Read more at irishtimes.com/ blogs/screenwriter
