Cork International Film Festival is delighted to present two programmes of Irish and international shorts at this year’s Kort Film Festival in Leuven, Belgium this December.
Programme 1 focuses on female Irish filmmakers of the first decade of this century, while Programme 2 highlights the new generation of filmmakers.
Programme 1:
Joyriders
As ten year old Kylie comes to terms with her grief, she discovers that sometimes imagination can become more powerful than reality.
The Door
A door gets stolen. Nikolai is trying to make sense of all the images that are shown, and that are based on someone’s testimony. The viewer bears witness to the universal tragedy of Chernobyl through the eyes of one man.
Small Change
Karen, a young single mother is bored by routine. Slot machines have become her secret thrill and addiction. With Christmas looming, a desperate hope for a big win sees her life spiral out of control.
Director Cathy Brady is currently celebrated internationally with her impressive debut feature Wildfire. One of the main roles is played by actress Nora-Jane Noone. It was also Noone who took on the powerful role of the single mother in Brady’s very first short film Small Change.
Killing The Afternoon
A secluded beach. Teenage girls are working on their suntans while boys try to attract their attention. A group of women take an aqua aerobics class in the sea while a huddle of canoes paddle nearby. A small child digs a hole in the sand while her mother tries to manage a portable barbeque. It is a windy day…
Free Chips Forever
Becky and her Dad are invincible chip robbers. Nothing can stand in their way. Nothing that is except her brother Tom..
Patterns
Jimmy and Tommy are inseparable brothers. Tommy is older, he is autistic. He lives in a world of patterns he has created in his mind. Jimmy is a visitor to this honest world and falls into its rhythm.
Programme 2:
The Last Organist
Paddy McConnell
Ireland | 2019 | 6 min. | Documentary
Truly one of a kind, 93-year-old organist George takes us through his love of music and his move from Belgium to Ireland 67 years ago.
Signal 8
Simon Liu
Hong Kong | 2019 | 14 min. | Documentary
Simon Liu’s eerie, entrancing portrait of Hong Kong tracks a series of strange disruptions to the city’s urban infrastructure.
Sudden Light
Sophie Littman
United Kingdom | 2019 | 15 min. | Drama
Mia takes her sister Squeeze to walk their dog in the fields near their home. The landscape begins to morph around them, tricking them and introducing Mia to a strange man lurking at the edge of a dark wood.
In Velvet
Jessica Kennedy, Megan Kennedy
Ireland | 2021 | 11 min. | Dance
An empty swimming pool. A car garage. A child sitting alone on a beach. A man approaches and they embark on a journey. A dance film about the bond between a father and his very young daughter.
Ciunas (Silence)
Tristan Heanue
Ireland | 2019 | 13 min. | Drama
A couple facing a family crisis sets off on a road trip across Ireland to visit their daughter. Their support means the world to her, but the parents admit they can’t always be strong. Sometimes silence says more than a thousand words.
Stir
Rory Bresnihan
Ireland | 2020 | 14 min. | Drama
A young woman finds herself a prisoner in the home of an old man who has recently lost his wife. As her desperate attempts to escape accelerate, he soon realises that he has taken on more than he can handle.
Broken: A Lockdown Story
TJ O’Grady Peyton
Ireland | 2021 | 4 min. | Drama
A man plunges from the sky, a militia chases down two siblings, a woman weeps in a derelict house: vignettes from a surreal family breakdown, visions from an unreliable narration who speaks only in idioms.
Hanging Over the Atlantic
Fionn Walshe
Ireland | 2019 | 9 min. | Documentary
Dursey Island is linked to the mainland by a single cable car. This lifeline allows its people to call Dursey Island home. Each day it brings new people, challenges, and life to this island.
About International Short Film Festival Leuven
Every year, the International Short Film Festival Leuven, founded in 1995, presents a selection of short films – fiction and animation, documentaries as well as non-narrative films. The Flemish and European short film competitions are an essential part of the festival. Annually, around nine jury and audience awards are handed out. In addition the festival always offers a series of retrospectives and specials, and, since 2007 the Flemish Audiovisual Fund awards its Wildcards at the festival.
The International Short Film Festival Leuven, which has been taking place at Art Center STUK since 2002, usually presents around 120 screenings over the course of eight days. Every year, the festival screens over 200 short films from around the world, presented in over 25 different programmes. In addition, the festival also hosts masterclasses, workshops and panel discussions for film fans and professionals from here and abroad.
The festival has been Academy Award®-qualifying since 2012, which means that the short films that are awarded the jury prizes in the European and Flemish competitions automatically end up on the Academy’s long list for Best Short Film. In 2016, the festival also became BAFTA Qualifying and in 2017 it nominated a short film for the European Film Awards for the first time.
