We take a look at some of the Irish films making their way to screens this year.
In order of latest release dates with films TBC below. We’ll update films, premieres and release dates as they come in and add reviews and interviews along the way. Another great year for Irish film…
The Last Right
DIR/WRI: Aoife Crehan
Premiere at Cork Film Festival 2019
In cinemas 6th December 2019
A comedy-drama road movie telling the story of a man bringing the body of someone he barely knows for burial with his family. His good intentions are motivated by trying to patch up his relationship with his own brother. However, en route from West Cork to Rathlin Island, both romance and family secrets emerge to complicate the trip.
CAST: Michiel Husiman, Niamh Algar, Samuel Bottomley, Eleanor O’Brien, Colm Meaney, Brian Cox
” an unexpected road trip full of heartbreak, humour and human kindness” – Liam Hanlon
Ordinary Love
DIR: Lisa Barros D’Sa, Glenn Leyburn • WRI: Owen McCafferty
In cinemas 6th Dec 2019
Joan and Tom are a long-married couple settled in their ways, enjoying brisk walks at sunset and playful bickering. Then Joan discovers a lump in her breast, which starts a chain of events that threatens to change their relationship completely.
CAST: Lesley Manville, Liam Neeson
“Co-directors Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn have created a film that’ll last a lifetime” – Aoife Aoife O’Ceallachain
Shooting the Mafia
DIR: Kim Longinotto
Premiere at the Sundance Film Festival 2018
In cinemas 29th November 2019
Sicilian Letizia Battaglia began a lifelong battle with the Mafia when she first pointed her camera at a brutally slain victim. A woman whose passions led her to eschew traditional family life and become a photojournalist, she found herself on the frontlines of one of the bloodiest chapters in Italy’s recent history. She fearlessly and artfully captured Sicilian life—from weddings and funerals to the grisly murders of ordinary citizens—to record the experience of the community she loved.
“explores the possibilities of art as a tool for challenging violence.” – Sarah Cullen
A Dog Called Money
DIR: Seamus Murphy
Premiere at Berlinale 2019
In cinemas 22nd November
As imaginative as the creative process it documents, A Dog Called Money is a uniquely intimate journey through the inspiration, writing and recording of a PJ Harvey record.
“Harvey and Murphy are the fasteners that suture and sew this beautiful construct. One with words, the other with images – carving an alliance that benefits and unifies, ultimately bringing forth its own potent and unique creation. “ -June Butler
The Curious Works of Roger Doyle
DIR: Brian Lally
Premiere at the Galway Film Fleadh 2018
In cinemas 24th October 2019
Composer Roger Doyle prepares for the staging of Heresy, his first opera, in Dublin in 2016. The film closely follows the rehearsals and preparations for the production, and explores over four decades of the surreal and otherworldly music of the ‘Godfather of Irish Electronica’.
“Doyle’s music invites its listeners to take part in an experience and Lally’s documentary allows for this.” -Loretta Goff
Dark Lies the Island
DIR: Ian Fitzgibbon • WRI: Kevin Barry
Premiere at Dublin International Film Festival 2019
In cinemas 18th October 2019
A long-standing family feud in a small Irish town over the course of a week.
CAST: Charlie Kelly, Pat Shortt, Peter Coonan
“Barry…is taking fantastical, heightened tropes that film fans like but is using them to explore contemporary themes like mental health and how patterns of emotional abuse develop within families.” -Stephen Porzio
Land Without God
DIR: Gerard Mannix Flynn, Lotta Petronella, Maedhbh McMahon • WRI: Gerard Mannix Flynn
Premiere @ Dublin International Film Festival 2019
In cinemas 18th October 2019
Gerard Mannix Flynn’s deeply personal documentary feature is a culmination of his writings and experiences spanning over four decades. The film centres on Flynn and members of his own family as they recall the effects of decades of institutional abuse, and the impact it has had – and continues to have – on their lives. The film asks the question: How does one exit the trauma buried deep in the bones of generations? A family’s journey into the dark side of the Irish State.
“raw, emotional and unflinching” -Sean Dooley
A Bump Along The Way
DIR: Shelly Love • WRI: Tess Mcgowan
Premiere @ Galway Film Fleadh 2019
In cinemas 11th October
Fifteen-year-old Allegra is constantly embarrassed by her mother’s immaturity, her dead-end job at the bakery and her lifestyle, encouraged by fast-talking best friend Aisling. But Pamela’s fed up too, having put her life on hold to raise her disapproving daughter.
When Pamela becomes unexpectedly pregnant, the relationship between mother and daughter is tested as the two navigate the upheavals of pregnancy and teenage hormones, driving Pamela and Allegra to a new understanding and appreciation of each other along the way.
CAST: Bronagh Gallagher, Lola Petticrew, Mary Moulds, Dan Gordan, Andy Doherty, Gerard Jordan, Paddy C. Courtney
” a sweet and uplifting film about female relationships” –Siomha McQuinn
Losing Alaska
DIR: Tom Burke
In cinemas 4th October 2019
The story of a small community in Alaska called Newtok who are dealing with a slow-moving disaster. The 375 inhabitants of Newtok feel the winter storms grow more fierce each year and steal their coastline, they watch their homes disappear into rolling seas as the melting permafrost erodes the edges of their town. The plan is to abandon the town and start again 9 miles up the river on higher, more solid ground. The community is divided between those determined to stay, and those equally determined to move. They are fighting the weather, the indifference of state agencies and now, finally, each other.
Best Before Death
Paul Duane
Premiere @ Edinburgh International Film Festival
In cinemas 4th October 2019
A portrait of artist Bill Drummond.
Extra Ordinary
DIR: Mike Ahern, Enda Loughman • WRI: Mike Ahern, Demian Fox
Premiere @ South by Southwest 2019
In cinemas 13th September 2019
A driving instructor must use her other-wordly gifts to save a lonely man’s daughter from a rock star looking to use her for Satanic purposes.
CAST: Maeve Higgins, Barry Ward
” builds its humour gently before finally reaching hysterical proportions in its final scenes”
Thank You Come Again
DIR: Stephen Clarke Dunne • WRI: Stephen Clarke Dunne, John Sweeney
Dillon, Mary and Fergus have a life-changing decision to make as a ruthless diamond smuggler comes to realise that precious inventory has gone missing. Meanwhile, Harry has one last chance at getting that one last job to see him to retirement, Fr. Francis has to decide which passion he must follow in life, Lisa goes looking for her missing husband James who likes a good refund, Fr. Rejoice has serious concerns about his young understudy who is spending too much time with a certain ‘local parishioner’, Naomi has to balance dating an adult shop owner with working for a psychotic boss, and Bridget has to keep bringing her dear son Timmy to confession cause he can’t seem to keep himself out of a certain shop of sin.
CAST: Brendan Sheehan, Christina Ryan, Nic Furlong
Never Grow Old
DIR/WRI: Ivan Kavanagh
Premiere @ Galway Film Fleadh 2019
In cinemas 23rd August 2019
A western in which an Irish undertaker profits when outlaws take over a peaceful American frontier town, but his family come under threat as the death toll rises.
CAST: John Cusack, Emile Hirsch, Antonia Campbell-Hughes
“visually very impressive”
Gaza
DIR: Garry Keane
Premiere @ Sundance Film Festival 2019
In cinemas 9th August 2019
Bringing us to a unique place beyond the reach of television news reports Gaza reveals a world rich with eloquent and resilient characters, offering us a cinematic and enriching portrait of a people attempting to lead meaningful lives against the rubble of perennial conflict.
“With understanding and sympathy the filmmakers have managed to capture how the toils of war shape the lives of people who are trapped by it”
Animals
DIR: Sophie Hyde • WRI: Emma Jane Unsworth
Premiere @ Sundance Film Festival 2019
In cinemas 9th August 2019
Laura and Tyler are soulmates. Thirty-something best friends and revellers residing in Dublin, they are ingrained in the fabric of each other’s lives; dating, partying, drinking and living their life without limitations.
CAST: Holliday Grainger, Alia Shawkat
“an exciting example of the female-centred, female-made content that is making waves across the film industry.”
Vita and Virginia
DIR: Chanya Button • WRI: Eileen Atkins, Chanya Button
Premiere @ Toronto International Film Festival 2018
In cinemas 5th July 2019
The true story about the love affair between socialite and popular author Vita Sackville-West and literary icon Virginia Woolf.
CAST: Elizabeth Debicki, Gemma Arterton, Isabella Rossellini
Metal Heart
DIR: Hugh O’Conor • WRI: Paul Murray
Premiere @ Galway Film Fleadh 2018
In cinemas 28th June 2019
There is much rivalry between twin sisters Emma and Chantal, quite different in just about every way, when their mysterious young neighbour moves back in.
CAST: Jordanne Jones, Leah McNamara, Moe Dunford, Seán Doylehttps://filmireland.net/2019/07/01/irish-film-review-metal-heart/
Prisoners of the Moon
DIR/WRI: Johnny Gogan
Premiere @ Dublin International Film Festival 2019
In cinemas 28th June 2019
Fifty years after the Apollo 11 mission, Johnny Gogan and Nick Snow’s documentary tells the hidden horror story behind the NASA space programme and of the only former Nazi to be stripped of his American citizenship and deported.
Weaving archive material and expert interviews with recreated courtroom drama using the transcripts of scientist Arthur Rudolph’s trial we learn about the Germans who led the moon shot, their wartime records, the cover-up that brought them to America, why it took forty years to investigate them, and why none of them were brought to trial….
CAST: Jim Norton, Cathy Belton, Marian Quinn, Alan Devine
“deftly researched docudrama”
Papi Chulo
DIR/WRI: John Butler
Premiere @ Toronto International Film Festival 2018
In cinemas 7th June 2019
Cast adrift in Los Angeles, Sean — a lonely TV weatherman — drives past a middle-aged Latino migrant worker standing outside Home Depot looking for work. He decides to hire this kind-looking man — to be his friend. Sean is young, gay and white; Ernesto, portly, straight and married. Despite having nothing in common, they build a sort of friendship based on sign language, until Sean becomes consumed by a deep and obsessional attraction.
CAST: Matt Bomer, Alejandro Patiño
“ultimately a film about human connections, about the shared experiences of loneliness, loss, and unlikely friendships”
Float Like A Butterfly
DIR/WRI: Carmel Winters
Premiere @ Toronto International Film Festival 2018
In Cinemas 10th May 2019
Irish Traveller Francis has to fight for the right to pursue her passion…boxing. She is determined to make her idol Muhammad Ali proud, as well as her father who has recently been released from prison. But when she wants to show him just how tough she is, she soon comes to realise he’s got other plans for her.
CAST: Hazel Doupe, Dara Devaney, Johnny Collins
“captures humanity at its best and worst, offering a message of hope throughout.”
Read Loretta Goff’s review here
The Dig
DIR: Ryan Tohill, Andrew Tohill • WRI: Stuart Drennan
Premiere @ Toronto International Film Festival 2018
In Cinemas 26th April 2019
Convinced that Callahan buried his daughter in the bog land, the father has spent every day of the previous 15 years digging it patch by patch.
CAST: Moe Dunford, Emily Taaffe, Francis Magee, Lorcan Cranitch
“a bleak visceral experience”
Greta
DIR: Neil Jordan • WRI: Neil Jordan, Ray Wright
Premiere @ Toronto International Film Festival 2018
In Cinemas 19th April 2019
A sweet, naïve young woman making a go of it in the Big Apple, Frances doesn’t think twice about returning the handbag she finds on the subway to its rightful owner. That owner is Greta, a peculiar pianist with a predilection for Romantic music and a desperate need for company. Frances recently lost her mother and feels alienated by her father; Greta has lost her husband, and her daughter lives far away. The two become fast friends — but that friendship rapidly assumes ever more sinister hues as Greta’s attentions escalate.
CAST: Chloë Grace Moretz, Maika Monroe, Isabelle Huppert.
” a polished, self-aware and highly diverting piece”
Don’t Go
DIR: David Gleeson • WRI: Ronan Blaney, David Gleeson
Premiere @ Galway Film Fleadh 2018
In Cinemas 12th April 2019
Ben Slater and his wife Hazel, in the wake of the tragic death of their daughter, Molly, retreat to the west coast of Ireland to build themselves a new life in a quaint hotel by the sea. However, there is no escape for Ben who is plagued by a recurring dream of a perfect day all three of them spent on the beach last summer. Ben becomes convinced that he can change the past through this dream and bring his little girl back. As his determination to bring Molly home grows, his grasp on reality slips and his sanity is questioned by those around him. Somewhere between dreams and reality lies the truth.
CAST: Stephen Dorff, Melissa George, Simon Delaney, Aoibhinn McGinnity, Charlotte Bradley, Luke Griffin
Out of Innocence
DIR/WRI: Danny Hiller
In Cinemas 12th April 2019
After a police investigation, a young mother, confused and scared, confesses to a crime she did not commit and is charged with murder. Based on real events in 1980’s Ireland.
CAST: Fiona Shaw, Alun Armstrong, Ruth McCabe
“puts its own harrowing spin on false truths. Women are persecuted from all aspects…”
Read Jemma Strain’s review here
The Limit Of
DIR/WRI: Alan Mulligan
In Cinemas 5th April 2019
James Allen is a successful, controlling, thirty-something banker living alone and working in Dublin city at the tail end of the recession. When a family tragedy occurs due to the ruthlessness of his employer, he takes decisive action to try to make things right.
Meanwhile, his enigmatic co-worker Alison has her own agenda, which puts her on a collision course with James, triggering and a dark spiral of deceit, revenge, and murder.
CAST: Alan Mulligan, Taine King, Tim Palmer, Anthony Mulligan
“an admirably bitter diatribe against the impersonal state of modern financial institutions”
The Man Who Wanted to Fly
DIR: Frank Shouldice
Premiered @ Galway Film Fleadh 2018
In Cinemas 29th March 2019
Bobby Coote left school at 13 and spends most of his time in his back shed fixing clocks and making violins, but he has never lost sight of a lifelong dream to fly. He has cut a runway in a neighbour’s field and even built a hangar. And now he’s using his life savings to buy a plane! He gets no encouragement from his brother Ernie – another octogenarian in the Coote household, who thinks the whole thing is mad. But Bobby is determined to get airborne, even if it’s the last thing he does.
An Engineer Imagines
DIR: Marcus Robinson
In Cinemas 1st March 2109
Many of the world’s modern architectural treasures including the Sydney Opera House, the Lloyd’s Building in London, the Inverted Pyramid at the Louvre and the Pompidou Centre in Paris were made possible through the innovation of Irish engineer Peter Rice. A genius who stood in the shadow of architectural icons. Until now
The Hole in the Ground
DIR: Lee Cronin • WRI: Lee Cronin, Stephen Shields
Premiere @ Sundance Film Festival 2019
In Cinemas 1st March 2019
Trying to escape her broken past, Sarah O’Neill is building a new life on the fringes of a backwood rural town with her young son Chris. A terrifying encounter with a mysterious neighbour shatters her fragile security, throwing Sarah into a spiralling nightmare of paranoia and mistrust, as she tries to uncover if the disturbing changes in her little boy are connected to an ominous sinkhole buried deep in the forest that borders their home.
CAST: Seána Kerslake, James Quinn Markey
“superbly acted, lean and highly entertaining horror film, and a fine feature debut by Cronin”
Cellar Door
DIR/WRI: Viko Nikci
Premiere @ Cork Film Festival 2018
In Cinemas 25th January 2019
The story of young love to tortured loss and back again, the story follows Aidie a fighter inside and out – as she searches for her son while in the grip of the Church.
CAST: Karen Hassan, Mark O’ Halloran, Karen Hassan, Catherine Walker, Ian McElhinney
“tackles the difficult topic of Irish institutional abuse, drawing connections in a thoughtful way and forcing the audience to think throughout”
Witness
DIR: Mitko Panov • WRI: Mitko Panov, Wladyslaw Pasikowski, David Riker
In Cinemas 25th January 2019
A political thriller about an enthusiastic junior officer from The Hague War Tribunal in pursuit of justice. The arrest of General Miro Pantic ends a decade-long manhunt that had frustrated his Western pursuers and left festering one of the bloodiest chapters in Europe’s recent history. He had been indicted by a War Crimes Tribunal on charges of crimes against humanity, but when an envoy from The Hague comes looking for an internal witness – Nikola Radin, alas The General – the problems begin. Getting out of the wilderness is not easy as no one wants The General to testify against Pantic, whom they perceive as their national hero. The bloody men-hunt will give a life-changing lesson to the young envoy who will understand that there are many more shades to what he thought was a black and white picture.
CAST: Pádraic Delaney, Natasha Petrovic, Bruno Ganz
The Favourite
DIR: Yorgos Lanthimos • WRI: Deborah Davis, Tony McNamara
Premiere @ Venice International Film Festival 2018
In Cinemas 1st January 2019
Early 18th century. England is at war with the French. Nevertheless, duck racing and pineapple eating are thriving. A frail Queen Anne occupies the throne and her close friend Lady Sarah governs the country in her stead while tending to Anne’s ill health and mercurial temper. When a new servant Abigail arrives, her charm endears her to Sarah. Sarah takes Abigail under her wing and Abigail sees a chance at a return to her aristocratic roots. As the politics of war become quite time consuming for Sarah, Abigail steps into the breach to fill in as the Queen’s companion. Their burgeoning friendship gives her a chance to fulfil her ambitions and she will not let woman, man, politics or rabbit stand in her way.
CAST: Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone
“a terse tale fit for the chaos of the times that’s unrepentant in its originality”
Read Michael Lee’ s review here
If you have a film set for release in cinemas this year and would like us to feature it, email filmireland@gmail.com
