About-old

San Francisco
Irish Film Festival

Sept. 23 – 25, 2010:: 7th Annual

ROXIE CINEMA
3117 16th Street (at Valencia), San Francisco, cA 94103
Visit our website for more details:

http://www.sfirishfilm.com

The San Francisco Irish Film Festival will present the very best in contemporary Irish cinema. The festival will also feature the Magners n’ Shorts program which includes free Magners Original Irish Cider as well as award winning Irish short films.

The mission of the festival is to bring new Irish cinema to the Bay Area and to celebrate the Irish short film, which is fast becoming a dominant art form in Ireland. The festival will also feature the acclaimed documentary features as well as a selection of Irish Language Films (with English subtitles)

For a complete schedule visit:
http://www.sfirishfilm.com

Our Sponsors
Thanks to our community sponsors

Celtic Scaffolding
Cinta Salon
Dovre Club
Jennifer DeGolia Fund
Terry Dunne Plumbing
Emerald Moving & Storage
Paddy Flynn’s, Burlingame
Conor Ford Painting
Harrington’s Inc. Furniture Moving
Irish Herald
Durty Neilly’s
Irish Network
Irish Times Moving and Storage
Kate O’Briens

Kieran Saunders Electric
Knights Catering
McCarthy Moving
New College Irish Studies Program
O’Neill’s Irish Pub – San Mateo
O’Reilly’s Holy Grail – San Francisco
Perfection Painting
Penninsula Community Foundation
Phoenix Irish Pub – San Francisco
Plough & Stars – San Francisco
Maire Rua for Hair
San Francisco Bay Guardian
Swig
Tir Na Nog Day Care

With special thanks to:

Bart Murphy, Eric Henry, Film Arts Foundation; Bill and Rick at the
Roxie Cinema; Marissa Aroy, Stephen Gardner, Rory Lenny & Mark Woodard at Magners. Robert Ryan at Setanta Sports, Richard Spencer Sinead Carey form
Murphys Irish Stout, Ruth Craig from Irish Dariy Board, Graeme Blackmore from Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant

The San Francisco Irish Film Festival is presented by the Irish Arts Foundation
and co-presented with the San Francisco Film Arts Foundation.

The Irish Arts Foundation was founded in 1985 to present quality Irish
and Celtic art and cultural events and is a full-time
multi-disciplinary organization presenting film festivals, concerts,
theatre, workshops, literary events and readings.

Funded in part by Grants for the Arts of the San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund
and Culture Ireland – an Irish Government agency whose mission
is to promote Irish culture abroad.

Festival Staff

Niall McKay – Executive Director

Una Fannon – Co Director

Bill Roarty & Conor Howard – Executive Producers
Niamh Ryan, IAF Board
Page Murray

Website: www.SFIrishFilm.com

Past Festivals:
2004 through 2008

San Francisco Irish Film Festival

In 2004 we began the San Francisco Irish Film Festival modestly with two nights of screenings at a small 150 seat film theatre and we sold out both nights. The second year (2005) we moved to the larger “art house” Roxie Theatre and had 7 screenings over three week days and more than doubled our audience. Equally the second annual festival included increased funding support in the form of a modest corporate sponsorship and indivdual/small business support from “friends.” We were also able to bring over from Sunniva O’Flynn from The Irish Film Archive, Dublin to introduce the films to our audience and to set the context for the films.

The third annual San Francisco Irish Film Festival will take place Match 8, 9 and 10, 2006 at the Roxie Theatre and Sunday March 12th at the La Peña Cultural Center in Berkeley.

Highlighted Presentations:

1991 through 2000

For 10 years beginning in 1991 we produced the annual San Francisco Celtic Music and Arts Festival which became a most acclaimed Celtic event – internationally recognised for its authentic presentation of quality music, song, dance, arts and crafts. Our festival attracted as high as 10,000 fans over the 2 day weekend – part Celtic Carnaval, part Parish Festival the Fort Mason affair provided a lively musical crossroads (& marketplace) for the community to gather in the always hectic “green” month of March. Over the decade we presented over 250 performers and groups from Ireland, Canada, Scotland and Wales. A very partial list of performers would include: Sharon Shannon (premiere American performance), Martin Hayes, Charlie Piggot, Susan McKeown, Richard Thompson, Old Blind Dogs, Altan, Tommy Makem, Arcady, Ashley MacIsaac, LÅ“nasa , Mary Jane Lamond , Kila and many others.

Equally during those 10 years we presented Irish film, music, theatre and poetry at a variety of venues. For example:

For two years in the mid-ninties we brought the Irish troupe Macnas over for premiere performances of their two award-winning plays “Balor” and “Sweeney” – during their second visit they made our San Francisco St. Patrick’s Day Parade something never seen before or since with their out of scale puppets, costumes and gorgeous float with King Neptune.

2000 to present

Finnegans Awake

The Consulate of Ireland, San Francisco in association with The Irish Arts Foundation presented “Finnegans Awake” We were fortunate in 2000 to have Kevin Conmy as Cosulate General and as the driving force in gathering 23 major Irish poets to the Bay Area for 4 glorious days in May of readings held at Stanford University and San Francisco’s Golden Gate University. The poets who attended our “Finnegan’s Awake” were Ronan Bennett , Eavan Boland , Ciaran Carson , Theo Dorgan , Katie Donovan , Paul Durcan, Eamon Grennan , Dermot Healy , Jennifer Johnston , Antonia Logue , Michael Longley , Colum McCann , Medbh McGuckian , Paula Meehan , Mary Morrissy , Paul Muldoon , Nuala N’ Dhomhnaill , Dennis O’Driscoll , Desmond O’Grady , Mary O’Malley , Glenn Patterson and Colm Toib’n.

Finnegans Awake was principally sponsored by The American Ireland Fund. Supporting Sponsors included: Stanford Humanities Center; Aer Lingus, Renaissance Parc 55 Hotel; The Cultural Relations Committee of Ireland, Department of Foreign Affairs, Dublin; Moose’s Restaurant; The Irish Tourist Board; Golden Gate University; Foley’s Irish House; Stacey’s Bookstore; www.irishabroad.com, Irish Herald; KALW Radio, Anna Livia Books and Grants for the Arts of the San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund.

International Joyce Conference

The University of California at Berkeley Department of English and the Irish Arts Foundation of San Francisco proudly presented a weeklong conference celebrating the life and works of Irish author James Joyce. “Extreme Joyce: Reading on the Edge” July 1 through 6th, 2001

This major week long international conference included literally hundreds of panels and discussions during the weekdays held at the Clarke Kerr Campus of the University of California. Sample panel titles would include: “Joyce, Anarchism and Anarchy ” and “Joyce and Frank Zappa ” or “Joyce & Marshall McLuhan” and “Geopolitical Joyce: Some Joycean Border-Crossings .”

Equally evening and weekend events included film, music and Joycean performances such as Trinity College Don and Joyce Scholar David Norris performing his one-man show – “Do You Hear What I Am Seeing?” – a two-hour sampling of Joyce’s works, interspersed with Norris’ rich knowledge of Joyce’s life and insights into his art. This sold out performance took place in the gorgeous art deco Maybeck Theatre.

This conference was sponsored by The American Ireland Fund, The Lannan Foundation, Stanford University Department of English, the Irish Tourist Board and the Consulate General of Ireland, San Francisco.

September 2003

An Evening and Reception with Seamus Heaney

Presented by Villa Montalvo and the Irish Arts Foundation in the sold-out 2,500 seat historic Redwood Theatre just south of San Francisco.

March 2001 through March 2005

We co-presented with the New College of California Irish Studies Program and the San Francisco Public Library a series of annual week-long festivals titled

Crossroads – Irish American Festival

These 5 annual (occuring in March) festivals celebrated the unique contributions and histories of the Irish in the Americans especially in San Francisco. The Irish have met at the American crossroads for five hundred years. From San Francisco to Santiago de Chile, Irish experience is woven into the Americas in countless ways. Through film, panels, readings, music and song Crossroads illustrated San Francisco as a cultural crossroads of Ireland and America.

Crossroad – Irish American Festival was supported in part by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the State Librarian; The Cultural Relations Committee of the Irish Government and D—nal Denham, Consul General of Ireland, Zellerbach Family Fund and Grants for the Arts of the San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund.