The 69th edition of CIFF is the perfect occasion for audiences and Festival Guests to connect and engage. This year our Parallax strand – spotlighting features and shorts by experimental artists – has expanded further and we look forward to the launch of the solo exhibition by the 2024 Parallax Emerging Film Artist Award, Asha Murray.
Join us also for our Illuminate strand, focusing on mental wellbeing through films selected by our programmers to inspire and spark conversation.
FESTIVAL GUESTS
The 69th Edition of the Cork International Film Festival is brimming with special guests.
The perfect occasion for audiences to engage with filmmakers during post-screening Q&As and attend enriching industry sessions where you can learn directly from industry professionals.
This year we will present our inaugural Honorary Disruptor Award to Bruce Robinson, director of Withnail & I, one of the finest British cult films of all time. Actor Paul McGann will present the award at a special screening on Tue, 12 Nov at the Triskel.
aemi EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS
aemi Shorts 1: Flights from Reason (1pm, Thu 17th Nov, Arc Cinema):
Curated by aemi for CIFF, Flights from Reason is a programme of new works by film artists from Ireland, France, the U.K., Poland and Sweden.
A complex of ideas emerges, producing entanglements where conscious and unconscious intertwine, ‘psychic knots’, as described by Joanna Stroud, that can be considered without a need for resolution.
aemi Shorts 2: The Said and The Unsaid (3.30, Sun 17th Nov, Arc Cinema):
This eclectic programme of work shifts from an act of deliberate and playful obfuscation to a process of attempted rediscovery to an uncovering of media artefacts that speak to both deliberate and discrete forms of creative expression in the face of state sponsored censorship.
Together these works describe a variety of creative means of expression borne out of a necessity to speak however indirectly.
PARALLAX : VISUAL EXPERIMENTS
The Parallax strand is made for audiences looking for playful cinema.
This curated selection includes the following features: Radu Jude’s Sleep #2 (Sun 10th & Thu 14th Nov, Arc Cinema) composed of a year’s worth of webcam footage of Warhol’s grave; Ceylan Özgün Özçelik’s Strange Abandoned Deranged (Sat 9th & Mon 11th Nov, Arc Cinema) on the rise and catastrophic fall of Naturland Eco Park, the first eco-hotel in Turkey; and Tomàs Pichardo-Espaillat’s Olivia and the Clouds (Sun 10th Nov, Arc Cinema), a hybrid and surreal exploration of the memory of love’s enduring power.
Our Free Radicals short programme (Sat 16th Nov, Arc Cinema) comprises experimental work from Irish and European filmmakers.
ILLUMINATE : FILM & MENTAL HEALTH
Our Illuminate spotlight, Duncan Cowles’ Silent Men Q&A (5:30pm, Sun 10th Nov, Triskel; 9pm, Tue 12th Nov, Arc Cinema), is an introspective journey of Cowles own struggles through the prism of men’s emotions and behavioural standards. After the screening on Sun 10th Nov, Cowles will participate in a panel discussion, accompanied by guests.
At Averroès & Rosa Park (2:15pm, Sat 9th Nov, Arc Cinema), the second part of Nicolas Philibert‘s trilogy on mental health will be featured in our programme, with its third part, The Typewriter and Other Headaches, available in our Online Selection.
Illuminate will also include Elizabeth Sankey’s Witches (7pm, Fri 8th Nov, Arc Cinema) and Federico Luis‘ Simon of the Mountain (6pm, Sun 10th Nov, Arc Cinema, the former being an exploration of witches’ portrayal in Western society and its connection to postpartum mental health, and the latter being the journey of a disabled young boy wishing to acquire a disability card.
PARALLAX EMERGING FILM ARTIST EXHIBITION: DROPPED FRAMES
Dropped Frames is a solo exhibition by Asha Murray, recipient of the Parallax Emerging Film Artist Bursary 2024, a collaboration between CIFF, National Sculpture Factory and Sample-Studios to champion emerging film artists and moving image work.
The opening reception will take place at The Lord Mayor’s Pavilion, Fitzgerald Park at 1pm on Sat 9th Nov.
You are invited to sit back, relax, immerse yourself in nostalgia and select a film from Asha’s creations, reminiscent of Xtra–vision Friday Night evenings.
The recipient of the 2025 Bursary will be announced during the Festival on Thu 14 Nov at the Triskel.
(11am – 4pm, Sat 9th – Sat 30th Nov, The Lord Mayor’s Pavilion)
Open Daily : Tue 12th – Sat 16th, from 11am – 4pm
