Irish Shorts 3: Pure Cork (In Competition)
Always a very well attended, the Pure Cork screening not only shows off the breadth and quality of filmmaking talent in Cork it also shows off our city and county. It wasn’t planned, but one can’t help but be taken by how playful, experimental and just downright celebratory is the filmmaking on display here.
There are films directly exploring creativity featuring traveller children living in the Knocknaheeny and Farranree areas, and international dancers exploring movement on the banks of the Lee. Coincidentally, there are two pieces that boldly engage with place and language.
And there’s an exciting variety of fiction work featuring malevolent aliens, surreal meditations on prawns, the travails of the grief stricken, and an award-winning father and son misadventure.
One can’t help noting the amount of films set along our beautiful coastline. We really are a breath-taking county!
TO BE WHAT WE ARE
Claire Murphy | 2023 | 5 mins | Ireland
The young Traveller children at the heart of the project explore play and creativity and what happens when you follow your imagination as it transforms into a dinosaur and then starts to run.
CORK JOURNAL
Marta Renzi | 2023 | 7 mins | Ireland
Personal and public intersect in the city of Cork, as 3 women, unfased by chilly weather and friendly passersby, dance on a bridge. Added to the mix are musings about the how, why and when of art-making itself.
CUMHA
Elena Horgan | 2023 | 6 mins | Ireland | Subtitled
Cumha is a short personal film exploring the role of language in identity and perception. Throughout the bilingual piece, the narrator discusses the changes in her relationship with her heritage tongue.
ANUA *
Aoise Tutty Jackson | 2022 | 13 mins | Ireland
An experimental film and sonic journey exploring our relationship to land, language, sound, mythology and the ‘Otherworld’.
ALIEN SKULL SUCKERS
Noel Holmes | 2023 | 18 mins | Ireland
Alien Skull Suckers is the story of an Alien stalking an isolated forest luring it's human victims with an earthly distress call...Help Me...Help Me Please...
THE IMMEASURABLE GRIEF OF THE PRAWN
Elinor O’Donovan | 2023 | 12 mins | Ireland
A wry, dreamy moving image piece exploring ideas of memory and approximate knowledge through the surreal figure of the prawn.
SALTWATER
Jesse Gilbert | 2023 | 12 mins | Ireland
Saltwater is about Bríd, a woman who has lost a loved one to the ocean. As she struggles with her grief she travels the shoreline in search of remnants of this person. As the winter storms increase in ferocity she must come to terms with her loss.
TWO FOR THE ROAD *
Lochlainn McKenna | 2023 | 19 mins | Ireland
Amidst spontaneous travels around 1990s Ireland, Oscar, a young boy, finds himself navigating the true essence of adventure and chaos with his father, one spirited weekend away at a time.
* denotes not eligible for the Grand Prix Irish Short Award.
All films are eligible for the Best Cork Short Award, sponsored by Murphy’s.
