Galway Film Fleadh has unveiled the full programme for the 2022 summer film festival, as it returns in full next month.
After two years of being mostly online, Galway Film Fleadh will be filling screens in Galway from July 5-10.
The 34th annual Fleadh features and exciting lineup of home grown and international talent, with an impressive 32 new Irish films, including 18 world premieres and 18 debut features.
These include the world premiere of director Declan Recks’ Tarrac, an intimate character drama set in the Kerry Gaeltacht.
Tarrac follows Aoife Ní Bhraoin who returns home to help her father recover from a heart attack.
Over the course of a summer, Aoife gets pulled back into the competitive world of rowing in Naomhóg boats, and 15 years of suppressed grief, anger, and sadness boil up in the water.
One of the nine nominees for the Fleadh’s Bingham Ray New Talent Award, Éanna Hardwicke (Smother, Normal People) stars in two features this year.
He is joined by multi-hyphenate Ollie West in his feature debut alongside David O’Hara in Michael Kiniron’s drama The Sparrow, the tale of a teenage boy in a remote fishing village, wrestling with the secret of a tragic accident.
In Lakelands, Hardwicke plays young Gaelic footballer, Cian who struggles to come to terms with a career-ending injury, alongside fellow New Talent Award nominee Danielle Galligan (Shadow and Bone, Game of Thrones).
Renowned Irish artist Aideen Barry will be bringing her debut feature film Klostės to the Fleadh, and imaginative black-and-white film merging early cinematic techniques including stop motion animation.
Klostės was created through collaboration with hundreds of citizens of the inter-war modernist city of Kaunas in Lithuania.
Other less traditional narrative pieces include the World Premieres of experimental filmmaker Dean Kavanagh’s first narrative feature Hole in the Head and visual artist Bryony Dunne’s docu-fiction piece, Surrender Your Horns.
As the full programme for this year’s Fleadh was revealed on Tuesday, Chair of the Board of the Galway Film Fleadh Annie Doona said, “On behalf of myself and the Board of Galway Film Fleadh I am delighted to welcome you all to the Fleadh 2022.”
“It’s wonderful to be back to normal and to meet the industry and friends old and new face to face.”
“The film industry in Ireland is thriving after a difficult few years and I’m so excited to see so many strong and diverse Irish films on show this year alongside some great industry events and panels.”
Exploring the world with Documentary
Documentary fans will have tough choices to make from the Sinéad O’Connor biopic Nothing Compares, the controversial views of pro-nuclear activists in Frankie Fenton’s documentary Atomic Hope: Inside the Pro-Nuclear Movement, and many more.
Across the world, China is in the grip of ‘pianomania’ in Gary Lennon’s Piano Dreams, chronicling three young musicians and their families in a competitive world.
Afghan Dreamers from David Greenwald follows an all-girls robotics team from Afghanistan who risk their lives to prove they can have a future as more than just teenage brides.
Working in secret under Taliban rule, the high school-aged team members face immense odds and ever-present danger to change perceptions in their male-dominated culture.
A Global Film Festival
Galway Film Fleadh is not just a showcase for Irish features, but boasts and boosts talent from 30 different countries.
In the Finnish comedy Bad Women, a busload of Russian sex workers seek sanctuary in a traditional parish community hall.
In Finnish director Alli Haapasalo’s Sundance debut Girl Picture, Aamu Milonoff (Netflix’s Deadwind) plays Mimmi, who experiences the earth shattering effects of falling in love with Emma, while her best friend Rönkkö goes on a quest to find something she’s never experienced before: pleasure.
In solidarity with Ireland’s new Ukrainian community, four new features from the still-productive Ukrainian film community present stories and themes that have taken on new resonance in light of the Russian invasion.
The Fleadh will close with Carol of the Bells, a period drama whose story of survival amidst occupation in pre & post-WWII Ukraine takes on new resonance amid the current war.
The film will be presented by director Olesya Morgunets-Isaenko and the lead actor Yana Koroliova, who now lives in Ireland.
This is just a small taste of the world cinema that will be coming to screens in Galway next month.
Of course, nostalgia has been a growing motif in cinema lately, something that is very much in line with the Fleadh’s motif ‘Return to the West’ this year.
To celebrate, the film festival will see a reunion of the cast & crew from the classic Into the West on the 30th anniversary of the award-winning family adventure.
The Fleadh has announced a Sunday matinée of Into the West, followed by a conversation with scriptwriter Jim Sheridan, director Mike Newell, and other key creative cast & crew who brought the film to life.
The Film Fleadh boasts fourteen programmes of short films, comprised of over 100 Irish and International shorts, all competing for the Fleadh’s Oscar® qualifying prizes.
This year also features a late-night shorts programme for the first time, focusing on horror themed shorts, to round out the festival’s genre section.
Rounding out the premieres and Q+A’s are a range of industry events, panel discussions and public interviews.
Check out the full programme of films for the 34th annual Galway Film Fleadh online here: https://www.galwayfilmfleadh.com/programme-2022.
