News

This Christmas homecoming story about a lawyer and his autistic brother is predictable but fits like a well-worn onesie

’Tis the season for festive comedy-dramas about awkward and/or farcical homecomings. There will be worse ways to dodge the high-street rush than this genial, Christmas-set Irish indie, in which hotshot Boston lawyer Daniel (Michiel Huisman) returns to his native Cork after his mother’s death to chaperone autistic teenage brother Louis (Samuel Bottomley).

Writer-director Aoife Crehan acknowledges a certain debt to Barry Levinson’s once prizewinning, now unfashionable Rain Man early on, and proves no less upfront about her dramatic contrivances. The first act is a blizzard of twaddle designed to get the brothers and mortuary assistant Mary (Niamh Algar) into a Volvo bearing a coffin containing the body of the stranger Daniel sat next to on his flight. Weather that, and you can settle in for a middle-of-the-road road movie across a drizzly,...

The closing-night gala, held at the historic Everyman Theatre, saw the triumph of Carlo Mirabella-Davis’ debut feature, Swallow. Yesterday, the 64th edition of the Cork Film Festival was brought to a close by the awards ceremony hosted by Dave Mac Ardle and held at the historic Everyman Theatre on MacCurtain Street. This year, the prestigious Spirit of the Festival Award went to Carlo Mirabella-Davis’ debut feature, Swallow. This Us-French co-production depicts the struggle of a young housewife and the increasing pressures to achieve perfection, as she begins to consume dangerous items in an attempt to take back control. Meanwhile, the Audience Award went to Aoife Crehan’s Irish dramedy The Last Right, and Feras Fayyad’s The Cave snagged two prizes – namely, the Award for Cinematic Documentary and the Cork Film Festival Youth Jury Award. Fayyad’s documentary is a harrowing account of one woman’s efforts to provide medical care in war-torn.

Slate includes Advantages Of Travelling By Train, Below.

Montreal-based Seville International arrives at Efm with a packed sales slate led by new additions The Last Right, 14 Days, 12 Nights and Mafia Inc.

Comedy drama The Last Right shooting now in Ireland stars Michiel Huisman, Niamh Algar, Samuel Bottomley, Colm Meaney, Brian Cox, Jim Norton in the tale of a reluctant stranger tasked with driving a corpse across Ireland for a burial, who in the process evades the police, finds love, and fixes family relations. Aoife Crehan directs and Pippa Cross, Paul Donovan and Casey Herbert serve as producers.

Xavier Dolan regular...

It is also investing €750,000 in Lorcan Finnegan’s sci-fi thriller Vivarium.

New projects from award-winning Irish filmmakers Emer Reynolds and Aisling Walsh have secured backing from Screen Ireland, formerly the Irish Film Board, in its latest round of funding decisions.

They are among close to 60 productions being backed by Screen Ireland in its second quarter of funding.

Reynolds, whose Voyager documentary The Farthest won numerous awards, will direct the documentary Songs For While I’m Away for leading Irish production outfit Marcie Films. The feature documentary about an as-yet-unrevealed iconic 1970s rock star received €175,000 in documentary production funding from Screen Ireland.

It is also investing €750,000 in Lorcan Finnegan’s sci-fi thriller Vivarium.

New projects from award-winning Irish filmmakers Emer Reynolds and Aisling Walsh have secured backing from Screen Ireland, formerly the Irish Film Board, in its latest round of funding decisions.

They are among close to 60 productions being backed by Screen Ireland in its second quarter of funding.

Reynolds, whose Voyager documentary The Farthest won numerous awards, will direct the documentary Songs For While I’m Away for leading Irish production outfit Marcie Films. The feature documentary about an as-yet-unrevealed iconic 1970s rock star received €175,000 in documentary production funding from Screen Ireland.

Exclusive: List of best unproduced movie scripts topped by two projects from emerging writers; biopics of Priscilla Presley, Alexander McQueen also feature.

The 2016 Brit List – a line-up of the best yet-to-shoot movie screenplays as voted on by the UK industry – has been topped by a sci-fi and an apocalyptic western, both from emerging writers.

Scroll down for the full list

The UK version of America’s Black List list is topped by joint-winners The Competitors, an apocalyptic western written by Ruth Greenburg, and sci-fi The Far Edge Of The World, written by Felix Harrison. Both projects received nine votes.

In second with seven votes was rom-com Bride Or Groom written by The Thick Of It and In The Loop actress Olivia Poulet and Lucy Brown.

Also making the list are Ecosse Films’ Lonesome Tonight, a biopic of Priscilla Presley written by Paul Viragh (The Face Of An Angel), Matthew Orton-scripted Eichmann and Chris Urch’s [link...