IFI Stranger Than Fiction 2012: What’s on Today Preview
14:30 – DOCUMENTARY DISCUSSION – FREE EVENT
Film Ireland Commissioning Editor is joined by Bart Layton (The Imposter) and Paul Duane (Very Extremely Dangerous) for a discussion about all things documentary.
18:30 – 5 BROKEN CAMERAS
This year’s Audience Award winner at Sheffield Doc/Fest, 5 Broken Cameras, co-directed by Palestinian citizen Emad Burnat and Israeli citizen Guy Davidi, chronicles a five-year period in the former’s home town of Bil’in, a small Palestinian village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
On the birth of his son in 2005, just as the Israeli government began construction of a security barrier separating the village from nearby settlements, Burnat acquired his first video camera, with which to record his son’s growth. Instead, as disquiet concerning the barrier grew, he began to document the non-violent protests of his family, friends, and neighbours, and the disproportionate force with which they were met. A deeply personal perspective on the conflict, this is a film that powerfully advocates a greater understanding between the opposing sides.
Awards:
Audience Award and the Special Jury Prize at International Documentary Festival Amsterdam;
World Cinema Directing Award at the World Documentary Competition at Sundance
What are the Critics saying?
“Takes the rough material of one man’s life and transforms it into a story that is universal and urgent, offering firsthand witness to events that are too often portrayed as distant and impossible to understand” – Washington Post.
20:30 – ONE MILE AWAY (Irish Premiere) – One of the protagonists will attend
Penny Woolcock returns to the site of her 2009 fictional feature film, 1 Day, for this powerful documentary about fueding gangs in Birmingham, the city with the highest level of gun crime in Britain. Woolcock uses the connections she garnered when she cast real gang members in her earlier film to attempt to intervene in violence between the Johnsons and Burgers that has continued for close to thirty years. Filmmaking could be seen as an unusual form of conflict resolution but Woolcock’s combination of otherness and talent for gaining access makes it a possibility. Up close and personal documentary footage, where Woolcock sometimes appears on camera herself, is interspersed with rap performances by gang members, which serves to illuminate the creative potential that will be lost if the marginalization of this generation of young Britons is not addressed. It makes for a compelling combination.
This is the first screening of the film outside of the UK and after it won the big Feature Film Prize at the Edinburgh Film Festival.
Awards:
Michael Powell Award for Best Feature Film – Edinburgh International Film Festival
What are the critics saying?
“Woolcock has a talent for gaining trust and giving a voice to those marginalised or demonised by the mainstream media” – Screen.
