Kelly Campbell and Killian Scott, two of our most gifted actors, were at the Light House Cinema in Smithfield last night to launch the programme for the upcoming 11th Jameson Dublin International Film Festival.
Gráinne Humphreys, festival director, briefed guests at the venue before a drinks reception at the Old Jameson Distillery. This year’s event will feature over 130 feature films as well as a tide of short pictures, workshops and special events. The festival begins on February 14th with a screening of Rufus Norris’s Broken. Scripted by Mark O’Rowe, the taut drama, starring Cillian Murphy and Tim Roth, recently won top prize at the British Independent Film Awards.
As ever the festival is to welcome an impressive array of celebrities. Danny DeVito, the much-loved actor and director, will be in town for a celebration of his varied career. The great Greek film director Costa-Gavras turns up for a debate on the role of the European director.
That event forms part of the festival’s celebration of Ireland’s Presidency of the European Union. JDIFF will bring the inimitable Robert Towne, writer of Chinatown, to Dublin to take part in a collaboration with the Irish Film Board entitled Story Campuses. Frank Langella, the veteran star of Frost/Nixon and Diary of a Mad Housewife, turns up to discuss his new film, Robot and Frank.
For many, the most anticipated visitor will be Joss Whedon. Director of Marvel Avengers Assemble, 2012’s most financially lucrative picture, Whedon broke through as the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the 1990s.
Changing tack dramatically, Mr Whedon visits JDIFF with his take on William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. Other pictures playing at JDIFF include the Wachowski siblings’ adaptation of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, Park Chan-Wook’s vampire sage Stoker and Michael Winterbottom’s The Look of Love, starring Steve Coogan as Soho sex baron Paul Raymond.
