The first falls of snow remind us that the Sundance Film Festival is nearly upon us. Good news for Ireland comes with the announcement that two domestic features and two shorts will screen at the Utah event.
The features – John Michael McDonagh's The Guard, a comic thriller starring Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle, and Ian Palmer's Knuckle,a documentary on bare-knuckle fighting – will receive their world premieres.
“It’s been a long, long journey making this film,” Palmer remarked. “It started on a quiet country lane in Co Louth in 1997 and now will finally emerge in the Rocky Mountains in Utah in 2011. It seems like a dream, and I couldn’t think of a better place for the film to be premiered than Sundance.”
The two shorts making their way to the Rockies are David O'Reilly's animation The External Worldand Cathy Brady's luminous drama Small Change. The success of Brady's fine film (a recent winner at the Corona Cork Film Festival) counts as a triumph for the National Film School.
The 2011 Sundance Film Festival runs from January 20th until January 30th. See sundance.org
