With the presence of JIM SHERIDAN And GERARD MCSORLEY closed the Xma edition with the screening of Corti winners - Diary from the House of Cinema, thanks to the collaboration of Marina fearful

Sunday 2 April at the Casa del Cinema in Rome ended with the presence of two top representatives of the Irish film, Jim Sheridan and actor Gerard McSorley, The tenth edition of IRISH FILM FESTIVAL, first and only Italian festival entirely dedicated to Irish cinema. Great success for this year's festival which saw large numbers of visitors arriving in the capital to show films, short films or attend meetings scheduled in busy schedule. Above the expectations the public response that in the four days of the event filled the Deluxe Room and the Hall of the House Kodak Film. During the final day over the last meetings and screenings, It held the award ceremony of the competition, reserved for producing short films or co-Irish production, This year has presented fifteen different works in various genres and techniques of realization. The Jury of Oscar Cosulich, film critic, journalist and artistic director of the Future Film Festival; Barry Monahan, Film Studies professor at the University of Cork City; and Serenella Zanotti, Professor of English Language and Translation at the University of Roma Tre, He awarded the prizes of the short film competition. A triumph for Best Short in the live action section is Gridlock Ian Hunt Duffy, a thriller starring Moe Dunford already a guest at the festival in 2015 con Patrick’s Day di Terry McMahon, and among the interpreters of the Vikings series. Vince instead the award for best short animation section of Second to None Vincent Gallagher, a black comedy about the second oldest man in the world. Other guests who attended the festival as well as Jim Sheridan and Gerard McSorley, The director Ciarán Creagh and actress Caoilfhionn Dunne (the cast of Love / Hate series) del film in programma In View; Peter Foot director of The Young Offenders Best Irish Film at the Galway Film Fleadh 2016; Martin McCann and narrator of the documentary Bobby Sands: 66 Days di Brendan J. Byrne, as well as director and interpreter of the short Starz, both scheduled at the festival.

Marina fearful that followed the event from the feature films puts in first place MAMMAL, seguito da SANCTUARY e IN VIEW. We are pleased to offer his thoughts on the first two and the Gridlock winner Ian Hunt Duffy, best short film in the live action section.

Mammal di Rebecca Daly: TOGETHER AFTER DEATH (vote: 7.5)

How much can be strong mother-child bond? How can survive the distance, the posting or, even, to death? Not always possible to find an answer to this question. and yet, usually a mother can always find, one way or another, a way to keep alive this bond. And this, eg, The case of Margaret, star of Mammal, – second feature of the young (but cinematically mature) director Rebecca Daly (already with a third work in the pipeline), which premiered at the 10th edition of the Irish Film Festival - which tries in its own way to overcome the teenager's death - she left with his father when he was still in diapers - hosting a young street boy injured in his home following a beating. With the arrival in the home of the boy, therefore, somehow, his son begins to live. And it does not only through the scar of a caesarean section, or through the photos on the flyers that indicate missing. It does, this time, through a guy in the flesh, a boy his own age, with perhaps similar to its problems and wearing his own clothes. A guy that would allow the woman to go back in time and make up in some way to all the faults and errors committed against his son.

Not only, therefore, is the mother-son relationship at the center of this important feature of the Daly. Using the complex and well-written character Margaret (impersonata dalla brava Rachel Griffiths) They are mostly guilt, forgiveness, redemption to act as pillars. The here presented to Margaret, its part, for setting and commissioning scene shortly deviates from troubled girl in Daisy Diamond, raccontataci in 2007 Simon Staho. The difference, But, that, in Mammal, the protagonist is not a victim of his own guilt, ma, Unlike, lotta, He tries to fight back with all his strength. Even at the cost of running big risks. And here, slowly, the staging seems to take gradually more and more yellow tones, thriller, with refined play of light and shadows in confined spaces within the home star, obscure the presence of the door and, on background, a gray city, cup, as if anything outside the relationship between Margaret and the boy was already dead. A city, after all, severe and judgmental, that does not seem to condone in any way the mistakes.

But that's not all. Given the subject matter – and almost as expected – a particularly important role has been entrusted to the element of water. Water as a mother's placenta. The water that gives life, but also death. It's in the water that drowned the son of Margaret. It's in the water that the woman is used to hold your breath to try something new, dangerous and, somehow, liberating. It's in the water, along with the unknown boy, you can find a meeting point. Only in water, apparently – as well as to suggest the colors are toned in blue - you can find the much desired peace with themselves. and yet, in Mammal, the water is represented always stops, flat, does not flow ever, never renewed. Whether it within the water of a swimming pool, a lake or a bathtub. Sign that - contrary to the claims of Heraclitus - not everything flows. A sign that, in reality, nothing can erase the scars of the past. certain faults, certain errors do not seem to ever find, the end and despite everything, its own, longed for redemption.

Sanctuary, debut of young director Len Collin: Allegro MA NOT TOO MUCH (vote: 7)

Contrary to what you might think, it is not easy to create an ensemble film. Or better, is not easy to make the ensemble film that was created is exactly what you'd call a satisfying and successful product. wanting, for a moment, set aside one who of ensemble films has always been the undisputed master - that the good Robert Altman - not many, in fact, feature films of the genre really noteworthy. Not many, yet there are. If that formula to unite the issue of disability - mental or physical that is - here is that immediately jumps to mind a real cult film history: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, masterpiece by Miloš Forman directed in 1975. Yet Forman was not the only one to talk about mental illness. It is the same year, indeed, the very interesting documentary Be Untied, signed Silvano Agosti, Marco Bellocchio, Sandro Petraglia and Stefano Rulli, as well as the same Agosti almost simultaneously realizes The flight, Another poignant documentary that tells us a moment of "evasion" of some of the psychiatric patients San Giovanni di Trieste. Wanting to make a jump of a few decades, that's that - while remaining in Italy - You can do find, feature film directed subject in 2008 by Giulio Manfredonia, set in the years immediately following the closure of mental hospitals following the law Basaglia. These are all products - more or less - noteworthy, that, one way or another, They have "made a difference".

In a scene where, apparently, now everything seems to already have been told, in that way can distinguish, therefore, a feature film as a Sanctuary, debut of young director Len Collin, past (wrongly) almost unnoticed at the Cannes Film Festival 2016 Italian and premiered at the 10th edition of the Irish Film Festival? undoubtedly, not only in the subject, but also for their dedicated care, as well as for the singular staging, this work of Collin, after all, He manages to stand out all right.

Taken from the homonymous play by Christian O'Reilly, staged by Blue Teapot Theater Company, theater company composed of children with intellectual disabilities, Sanctuary was shot with the same company: gay boys, full of life and with a keen talent for acting that are perfectly able to carry out virtually alone - with lightness and irony - the entire feature. Shot on a shoestring budget visibly, the Collin film takes place over a full day: the day when a group of young guests to a foster home is accompanied by an assistant to the movies. When the guy in charge of their output leaves to accompany two of them - very much in love - and spend a few hours in a hotel suite, happen here pandemonium: each of the guys will leave the room and go around on their own in the center of Galway City. Find them and bring them together to be able to go home will seem, at this point, firm virtually impossible.

The tones are mild and naive. The irony and self-irony are strong. and yet, despite the "light" trend of the entire feature, this work of Collin is to denounce especially a dull and outdated legal system, which only serves to further discriminate against those suffering from disabilities of all kinds, without thinking first and foremost to the welfare of the sick. And here, when the law wants to have his say, from light comedy, Sanctuary is transformed into a raw product and disenchanted, that puts little hope in the near future. A film apparently "naive", with its own, well defined identity and an important message behind. A movie, therefore, that, for its disarming simplicity blended with a strong communicative effectiveness, leaves its mark. A true gem in the contemporary film scene.

Gridlock Ian Hunt Duffy ie GIRL DISAPPEAR (vote: 7.5)

A young man. His six year old daughter. A phone call rather agitated during a driving trip. Suddenly, a long line of stationary cars, waiting to continue their journey. When the man will see what happened, the child disappears mysteriously. Who was responsible for her disappearance? Almost certainly some of the motorists in a row. We must see who, But. But this is just the beginning. From this moment on, indeed, will kick off a respectable thriller, with lots of voltage spikes inside united to "lighter" and ironic moments. And it all takes place in less than twenty minutes. We're talking about Gridlock, short film directed by young filmmaker Ian Hunt Duffy and presented in competition at the 10th edition of the Irish Film Festival, where it was awarded best short film live action.

Alfred Hitchcock claimed that, in order to create suspense, We have to give the viewer the most information possible, about what is happening on screen. That said, therefore, in a yellow formula of whodunit (English "who has done it?"-" who did it?”) It is often not appropriate, if you want to keep the audience in a constant state of tension. One particularly enlightening about - as the same uncle Alfred explained - can be a scene where two men are talking about sitting at a table in a bar. Both, obviously, They are unaware of the fact that under the same table there is placed a bomb ready to explode at any moment. the viewer, Unlike, it is perfectly aware. And here, therefore, for the latter, the entire scene - until the time of the explosion - will be particularly rich in suspense. which, obviously, It would not happen if the bomb were limited to explode and no one - including the spectator - was aware of his presence. obviously, This rule was not always respected by the Hitchcock. Just think, eg, to one of its most interesting features - albeit lesser known - that, both thematically and for setting, very reminiscent of the same Gridlock: The Lady Vanishes (1937).

Good, said this, Ian Hunt Duffy short film takes place, as already you can guess after a brief synopsis of the last, following - similarly to what happens in The Lady Vanishes - in all respects the classic formula of whodunit, just like what happened, eg, Also in Agatha Christie - Poirot, Miss Murple and company - to which we are so fond and, in fact, They have always worked, if you want to talk about suspense. It will be for the small group of suspects, It will be for closed environments and narrow, but this formula so beloved by Christie, if used in the right way, works and how. The same, as already mentioned, it happens here, in Gridlock, where the young author manages perfectly to give life to a satisfying thriller "complete", Despite the few minutes available. merit, obviously, of an iron script, about the characterization of each character (as not notice, about that, the mysterious man locked in the car that seems to not want in any way take part in the search for the child?), about the setting and, not least, a careful direction to detail and aware that, also thanks to individual elements (the horse invested and bloody that blocks the passage of the machines, but also doll baby), It shows complete mastery of cinematic language and, mostly, He knows how to manage and measure out the suspense in the right place. Up to a more than satisfactory final overturning.

And now the prize for best short film in live action is, therefore, well deserved. Award which is, in fact, just further confirmation of the artistic value of this small but effective work of a filmmaker who, we hope, can give us, in the future, still many, many emotions.

marina fears