Corona Cork Film Festival

Festival staff are currently at the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival in France staffing the “Irish Short Film” stand in the film market here. Clermont-Ferrand is the biggest short film festival in the world and has an amazing Short Film Market. 29 countries are present, promoting their short films and filmmakers. Four years ago, with the support of Culture Ireland , CCFF took the initiative of promoting new Irish shorts and it has been a great success. Irish shorts have been screened across the world as a result. Last year we persuaded Bord Scannán na hÉireann/ the Irish Film Board to partner with us in this initiative.

At Clermont this year there are four Irish shorts in competition, Cork-winner, Moore Street Masala (David O’Sullivan), is in International Competition while Please Say Something (David O’Reilly), The Polish Language (Alice Lyons and Orla McHardy), and another Cork success, A Film From My Parish (Tony Donoghue) are all in the Lab Competition.

We are also in Clermont as the Irish Desk of EuroConnection, a Clermont initiative to encourage European coproduction in the area of short films. Last year we proposed Rosslare To Roscoff, the first drama project from the award-winning Venom Films team of Ken Wardrop and Andrew Freedman – their Undressing My Mother won Best International Short at Cork, a European Film Academy award, an Irish Film Academy award and many, many, other awards. As a result of EuroConnection, their new project secured 100% funding and is nearing completion. Look out for at at this year’s Corona Cork Film Festival.

This year we have proposed another excellent project. It’s from Tony Donoghue (A Film From My Parish) and is called Boo! A Child’s View Of Folk Life In Europe. Tony’s film is a documentary look at European folk culture through the eyes of children.

We are happy to report that the 2009 edition of the Corona Cork Film Festival was a cultural and organisational success. We achieved our artistic goals, stayed within budget and met our income targets. And we exceeded our box-office target!

Feedback from audiences and film makers has been positive. Cork City Council passed a unanimous resolution of congratulations. Admissions, including school groups, approximated 30,000.

We would like to thank everyone who participated in our 54th festival – filmmakers, our funders, patrons, customers, venues and volunteers – the festival simply couldn’t happen without you all.

We look forward with confidence to the 2010 festive, our 55th anniversary.

The festival dates for 2010 are November 7th to 14th.

The 2010 Entry Form is now online and we look forward to viewing all the new work which will come our way for the 55th Corona Cork Film Festival.

… all those Irish filmmakers nominated for the Academy Awards. It’s a wonderful shot in the arm for all those working in the Irish film sector and, I guess, for the country as a whole that Irish short filmmaking talent has once again been recognized by the Academy.

Ever since Louis Marcus’ ground-breaking in the ’60s, Ireland has been punching above its weight at the Oscars’ short film categories. Recently nominations were the animations, Fifty Percent Grey and Give Up Yer Aul Sins and last year New Boy was nominated in the Live Action Shorts category. And of course Six Shooter won the Live Action Short Oscar in 2006!

And now the wonderful news that Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty (Dir. Nicky Phelan) has been nominated in the Short Animation category and The Door (Dir. Juanita Wilson) in the Live Action Short category. Juanita’s film won Best First Short by an Irish Director in Cork in 2008.

Congrats also to all involved with The Secret of Kells (Dir. Tomm Moore) nominated in the Best Animated Feature category.

…all at Venom Films! Their first feature-length documentary His & Hers (directed by Ken Wardrop and produced by Andrew Freedman) recently screened at the Sundance Film Festival and we have just learned that it won the award for Best Cinematography in an International Documentary! The cinematographers are Kate McCollough and Michael Lavelle (a previous Cork-winner with Out Of The Blue). Congratulations to all!