TRADITIONALLY, the second weekend of the Cork Film Festival is a time for Irish film making, with the Irish Shorts programmes and premieres of new Irish feature films creating a very particular buzz in the air.
Of Ireland's best known filmmakers, the great documentarist John T. Davis is probably the one most associated with Cork. His relationship with the festival stretches back to 1979, when his punk documentary Shell Shock Rock was banned by the and regime, and his much anticipated new documentary, The Uncle Jack, four years in the making, received its world premiere on Saturday.
Davis has always been a tangible presence in his own films, but here he goes further than ever before in exposing himself to scrutiny. The Uncle Jack is at times almost painfully personal, charting as it does Davis's relationship with his uncle and mentor, John ("Jack") McBride Neil, the cinema architect who built most of Northern Ireland's movie palaces in the 1930s. The burning down in 1992, "by persons unknown" of his masterpiece, the Tonic Cinema in Bangor, set Davis - who still lives in the house in Holywood, Co Down bequeathed to him by Jack - on a personal odyssey through his memories.
This is film as exorcism, with Davis using his relationship with Jack as the starting point for a lyrically phrased journey of self discovery. Certain key motifs recur throughout The Uncle Jack - aeroplanes and the dream of flight; the flickering sadness of old movies; the fear of madness - which link the two men across several decades. It's an incredibly brave and admirable film which won't be to everyone's taste; some members of the audience found it impenetrable or pretentious. I found it deeply moving and hope to see it again as soon as possible.
In complete contrast, Jennifer McShane and Tricia Regan's documentary, Leap Of Faith, narrated by Liam Neeson follows the setting up of the Cranmore Integrated Primary School in Belfast in the 12 months leading up to the 1994 ceasefire. An obviously well intentioned piece of work, it suffers from its need to explain the basic details of the conflict for its American audience. Although Ken Maginnis and Father Denis Faul are enlisted to represent the anti integrationist viewpoint, the film never really gets under the skin of Northern Irish sectarianism.
An entirely different form of documentary making was represented by the English director Andrew Kotting's marvellous Gallivant, a touching, funny and beautiful looking account of the film maker's journey around the coast of Britain in the company of his 85 year old grandmother and seven year old disabled daughter. Kotting, whose short film work was the subject of a festival focus, demonstrates how avant garde techniques can be harnessed for the best kind of populist ends.
Irish director Trish McAdam's Snakes And Ladders, covered in these pages by Michael Dwyer at the Toronto Film Festival, received a warm reception from a large audience for its Irish premiere at the Opera House, as did the Billy Roche scripted Trojan Eddie, directed by Gillies MacKinnon, which was seen some months ago at the Galway Film Fleadh. Other Irish drama included Draoiocht, directed by Aine O'Connor from a script by Gabriel Byrne, which will be the first major production shown on Teilifis na Gaeilge when the new channel opens next month. Although a subtitled print was promised, it did not materialise and this reviewer does not feel competent to comment in any detail on what seemed a solidly made piece of work.
Enda Hughes's groundbreaking no budget thriller The Eliminator continued tour of the festival with a late night screening at the new Kino Cinema, but the revelation in Cork was an unheralded, unexpected treat: November Afternoon, directed by John Carney and Tom Hall, is an astonishingly assured and stylish urban feature film, shot with great flair in black and white on video hi-8 by Mark Waldron. Michael McElhatton, Jayne Snow, Tristan Gribbin and Mark Doherty are the leading players in a tragi comic story of deceit, lust and incest between two middle class couples over a weekend in Dublin. Just as The Eliminator implicitly subverts the entire cycle of pofaced "Troubles movies", so November Afternoon puts many recent attempts at contemporary Irish urban cinema to shame, operating on a shooting budget which amounts to a tiny fraction of most "low budget" films.
Stephen Bourke, the winner of Best European Short three years ago, was awarded best Irish short this time around for 81, his witty and humane account of the 1981 hunger strikes. Another Northern set drama, Dance Lexie Dance, won the Claire Lynch Award for Best Irish Film by a First Time Director for Tim Loane. Best European Short went to the German animated film Quest, and Best International Short to the British film Was She There. Best Black and White Short was the Danish film, Bogeyman, and Best Black and White Ciaematography went to Not For Nothin, from the US. The Audience Jury Award was presented to The Saint Inspector (UK), with commendations for Steaming (UK) and My Dear Brother (France).
