Foyle Film Festival

23rd Foyle Film Festival and Cinema & Arts Initiative at the Nerve Centre

Film Exhibition and Film Education at the Nerve Centre incorporates the ongoing Cinema & Arts Initiative and the annual Foyle Film Festival. Both projects combine to provide a complimentary year round programme of screenings, workshops, and special events aimed at schools, colleges, and the general public. This collaborative process ensures a high quality programme of events throughout the year.

The Foyle Film Festival

Now in its 23rd year, the annual Foyle Film Festival is the flagship project of the multi-media Nerve Centre. For nine days in November, the Foyle Film Festival capitalises on all the technical expertise of the Nerve Centre to produce a unique programme of film, music, digital technologies, and education. The festival is themed and delivers a programme of art house cinema: international and local premieres, foreign language, documentaries, classic film, industry workshops, presentations, outreach events, as well as a stand alone education programme which is curriculum focused and targets all local primary, secondary schools, colleges, and universities. The festival competition has received Oscar® recognition for its Light In Motion (LIM) Film Awards.

Foyle Film Festival is renowned for attracting top industry professional to the city with past guests of the festival including high profile names such as: Julie Christie, Neil Jordan, Wim Wenders, Kenneth Branagh, Jenny Agutter, Julien Temple, Christiane Kubrick, Andrew Eaton, Brenda Blethyn, Roddy Doyle, Irvine Welsh, Stephen Frears, Ronan Bennett, Jimmy McGovern, Rob Coleman,

Sam Taylor-Wood, Kate Adie, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Cillian Murphy, Ardal O’Hanlon, Dervla Kirwan… to name but a few.

The festival also collaborates with other organisations to deliver special premiere events throughout the year. This year the festival was a partner sponsor with PURE Magazine hosting the premiere screening of SATC 2 in Derry/Londonderry to a packed audience in the local Omniplex.

Foyle Film Competition: Light In Motion (LIM) Film Awards

The competition element of the Foyle Film Festival has grown from strength to strength over the last decade – gaining international recognition for this element of the programme, and providing a worldwide platform for filmmakers to garner maximum exposure for their work. Festival competition categories are Best International Short Film, Best Irish Short Film, Best Animated Short Film, and Best Documentary.

In 1999 the Foyle Film Festival became an Oscar® affiliated festival – one of only a handful of such events to enjoy this honour. As a result, recipients of the festival’s Light In Motion (LIM) Film Awards qualify for consideration in the Short Films category of the Annual Academy Awards® without the standard theatrical run. Previous winners and competitors who have proceeded to win the Oscar®, include: Martin McDonagh (Six Shooter), Adam Elliot (Harvie Krumpet), and Eric Armstrong (Chubbchubbs). Other festival award winners received Oscar® nominations in 2010 - including Juanita Wilson, Director of The Door who received a LIM Award for Best International Short at the Foyle Film Festival in 2008. While the winner, also in 2008, of Best Animation French Roast - directed by Fabrice O. Joubert - also received an Oscar® nod at this year's Academy Awards®.

Acknowledging her success at the Foyle Film Festival in 2008, the Director of ‘The Door’ Juanita Wilson commented “Winning the Foyle Film Festival was one of the highlights of my career. Firstly, I had a real sense of commitment to the craft of film from all the people involved and was delighted to have a chance to interact with Moving Image Arts film students and enthusiasts through a question and answer session. It was very interesting for me to hear comments and get direct feedback from an audience. We were all treated with such respect and kindness and the hospitality will always be appreciated. The standard of films being shown was very high and I was surprised and very honoured to discover that ‘The Door’ had won. It was an amazing night and winning such a prestigious award gave me more confidence about the film. And of course winning the LIM award at Foyle offered us the opportunity to enter our film to the Oscars® - it's a great bonus for film-makers to be selected by the Foyle Film Festival in the knowledge that as an affiliated festival, it could lead all the way to the Oscars®. We were very proud to be nominated for an Oscar® in the Short Film category this year. I would hold the Foyle Film Festival in very high regard and feel it is both intimate and ambitious as a festival and the serious commitment, warmth and hard work of the all the people involved make it very special.” Juanita is currently working on her debut feature film ‘As If I’m Not There’.

In 2009 the Foyle Film Festival also joined the list of BAFTA-recognised festivals. Consequently, Short Films and Short Animations which either screen or are accepted to screen as part of the Light In Motion (LIM) Film Awards at Foyle Film Festival can be submitted for consideration to the Short Film Awards at BAFTA. While independently funded British feature films (fiction and documentary) screening at Foyle Film Festival qualify for consideration in the British Independent Film Awards.

The Foyle Film Festival Education Programme is a stand alone, curriculum focused and targeted at all primary, secondary schools, colleges, and universities throughout the North West. It also incorporates outreach packages which are taken out into schools, as well as outreach programmes being delivered in other arts organisations such as the Strule Arts Centre and the Letterkenny Arts Centre.

Highlights of the Foyle Film Festival Education Programme in 2009 included a strand of special events to mark the 70th Anniversary of the outbreak of WWII. One of the films included as part of this strand was the documentary ‘Till The Tenth Generation’ which looks at the life of Holocaust survivor Tomi Reichental. Tomi survived the Nazi death camp of Bergen Belsen, and has lived in Ireland for over 30 years. Tomi attended the festival to introduce the documentary and answer questions from students and the general public during four separate screenings of the film. The event was also included as part of an education outreach programme in the Letterkenny Arts Centre. Also screening during the Foyle Film Festival Education Programme in 2009 was the film ‘Life Is Beautiful’ which poignantly used humour to explore the awful truth of the Holocaust. This was a rare opportunity for students and the general public to see this classic film on the big screen. Indeed the film had to be held over for an additional week due to the demand from schools.

Winners of the Moving Image Arts Student Awards represent an ongoing highlight of the festival’s education programme, with awards (sponsored by Derry City Crystal) being presented to the winning students. The festival programmes special events each year to compliment the study topics of MIA students. Recent highlights included a special screening of a Stanley Kubrick classic, which was attended by his widow Christiane Kubrick. While last year students attended an audience with renowned local actor Gerard McSorley.

Other highlights have been collaborations with organisations such as the British Council – who in 2009 sponsored a strand of films exploring climate change. Films screening included ‘The Age Of Stupid’, which employs cartoons, case studies, and a docu-drama approach to convey the terrifying conclusion that if environmental destruction continues at its present rate then the next generations will see a self-inflicted Armageddon.

The dates for the 23rd Foyle Film Festival are Friday 19-Saturday 27 November, with the programme launched on Friday 22 October 2010 in the Nerve Centre.

The Cinema & Arts Initiative

The Cinema & Arts initiative incorporates a year round programme of art house films, documentaries, special events such as the Intercultural & Anti-Racism Programme, and kids summer film club. The Cinema & Arts Initiative screens predominantly foreign language, independent films, documentaries and classic cinema. Highlights of the programme have included sell out screenings of classic foreign language films such as ‘Cinema Paradiso’, ‘Christiane F.’ The initiative also hosts events marking special calendar events such as International Women’s Day – with screenings of hard hitting films such as ‘Trade’, which deals with sex trafficking. Other highlights include director talks focusing on the leading lights of the film industry – such as Martin Scorsese, Roman Polanski, The Coen Brothers, Stanley Kubrick, and Wim Wenders. The Cinema Initiative additionally hosts Classic Japanese Cinema screenings, and the Magic Lantern Film Society – both offering a diverse range of cinematic fare. The Initiative also acts in an advisory capacity to other festivals – such as the One World Festival and the North West Youth Festival. This year the cinema initiative will collaborate with Film Education to deliver a programme of screenings for National Schools Film Week.

The largest film education event outside of the Foyle Film Festival was the Intercultural and Anti-Racism Programme, which took place in March 2010. This annual event, was programmed, organised, and delivered by the Nerve Centre’s Cinema & Arts Initiative. For the five consecutive year, this important educational and cultural event offered local primary and secondary schools, colleges and the general public, a programme of screenings, workshops and outreach events on the themes of racial discrimination, prejudice, immigration and diversity.

As well as Nerve Centre based screenings and workshops, the Intercultural and Anti-Racism Programme took films out into school assembly halls and classrooms. Highlights of the programme included sell-out screenings of the controversial and award winning ‘Precious’. The programme welcomed back Holocaust survivor Tomi Reichental – due to the overwhelming demand for this event during the Foyle Film Festival in November 2009. While special presentations such as ‘Rediscovering The German Resistance To Hitler’ challenged the myth that no one in Germany challenged Adolf Hitler during the Second World War.

Other recent highlights of the programme in recent years have included, in conjunction with Amnesty International, a screening of the documentary ‘The Road To Guantånamo’. This is the terrifying first-hand account of three British citizens who were held for more than two years without charges in the American military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The Tipton Three (as they came to be known in reference to their hometown near Birmingham) – Ruhal Ahmed, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul – attended the Intercultural & Anti-Racism Programme to introduce the film and conducted a Q&A after the screening. While this year’s programme included the award winning and hard-hitting film ‘Precious’, which screened to a packed auditorium.

Special workshops include the Ulster Wean's A-Z of Spaces and Places CD-Rom which explores the cultural heritage of Ulster through the eyes of local children. This unique educational resource promotes understanding of how different cultures celebrate important events such as Christmas, New Year, Easter, St. Patrick’s Day, and the marching season. While ‘What Makes Me Happy?’ is an award winning series of six short films produced in partnership by The Ragdoll Foundation and Save The Children. The series, filmed in Nepal, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Ethiopia, China, Sri Lanka and Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK, gave six different children, of the same age, from challenging communities around the world an equal opportunity to tell their stories. They introduce both children and adults to the circumstances of children living in the developing world and deprived communities closer to home.

The Cinema & Arts Initiative incorporates a Kids 3D and Blu-ray Summer Movie Club offering young people a selection of the best animated features and short films over the school holiday months. The project also accommodates other special film related events – such as birthday parties and Christmas screenings.

For further information on the 23rd Foyle Film Festival and/or the Cinema & Arts Initiative, contact Bernie McLaughlin at 02871 373 456 or 02871 260 562. Email: Bernie@nerve-centre.org.uk