The Capital Irish Film Festival Loves Irish Filmmakers

Five filmmakers will be joining the Capital Irish Filmmaker audiences to discuss their films, their careers and their next projects at the American Film Institute Silver Theatre March 2 through 5:

Born and Reared is a first feature-length documentary for filmmakers Henrietta Norton, director, and Dan Dennison, producer/cinematographer. It tells the ongoing story of four young men of differing social and religious backgrounds who grew up during “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland, when lines of identity were sharply drawn. The underlying question is “What happens when the cameras and reporters go away?” What are the aftereffects of civil conflict long after the “Good Friday Peace Agreement of 1998?” Ms. Norton was born in London, but spent weekends and holidays in Northern Ireland with her stepmother Marjorie “Mo” Mowlam, who was Northern Ireland Secretary of State in 1997 and ’98. She calls this a story she had to tell. Dublin-born producer Dan Dennison is a photojournalist who has been to trouble spots around the world. He has seen the aftereffects of conflict in many cultures. Ms. Norton co-founded the first crowdfunding platform in the United Kingdom in 2011 and ‘Born and Reared’ was initially funded by a Kickstarter campaign in 2014. Hen and Dan have recently established Hot Feet Productions, a film company that specializes in documentary films. Screening Thursday, March 2 at 7:15 p.m.

Producer Marie-Therese Garvey founded the independent production company Greater Than Ten Miles in 2015 to focus on telling social issue stories in creative and innovative ways. GTTM’s first feature documentary is Atlantic, released in 2016, and the winner of Best Irish Documentary at the Dublin International Film Festival. Narrated by Emmy Award-winning actor Brendan Gleeson and directed by Risteard O’Domhnaill (The Pipe 2010),”Atlantic” follows the fortunes of three small fishing communities – in Ireland, Norway and Newfoundland – as they share the struggle to maintain their way of life in the face of mounting economic and ecological challenges. Ms. Garvey, based in County Clare, Ireland, has shot documentaries in some of the most difficult terrain on Earth, including the Norwegian Artic and the Sahara Desert. The Irish Times calls Atlantic “epic in scope, damning in its conclusions.”

Screening Sunday, March 5 at 2:30 p.m.

Lift writer-producer Kealan Ryan is also a novelist, whose debut novel “The Middle Place” won the 2015 Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair, director of short films, actor, musician and travel blogger. Lift, directed by Conor Armstrong Sanfey, is his first feature film writing credit. FilmIreland.net says, “Ryan never lets a moment last too long where characters aren’t saying something humorous.” Ryan and Sanfey also turned to crowdfunding to get this movie, about people trapped in an elevator with a man who has just committed an assault, off the ground. CIFF will be Lift’s U.S. premier.

Screening Friday, March 3 at 7:15 p.m.

Hilary Rose is an actor, comedian and the wife of “The Young Offenders” director Peter Foott. Seven months pregnant with her first child while filming the final scenes playing the mother of one of the juvenile delinquents in the comedy, she says it was a family affair, start to finish. The road show, buddy flick, based on a real Irish crime scene, follows two hapless small-time criminals as they set off to find a cache of drugs that reportedly is washing up on the beautiful beaches of West Cork. Ms. Rose, who is from Cork, is known in Ireland as the television character Handy Sandie from “Republic of Telly”. “the Young Offenders” was named Best Irish Feature Film at the Galway Film Fleadh and received the Dublin Film Critics Circle award for Best Irish Film.

Screening Sunday, March 5 at 6:30 p.m.

CIFF All Access Passes are available at http://silver.afi.com/Ticketing/visShop.aspx

Single tickets are available at AFI.com/silver