Thank You!

Festival Angels

The San Francisco Irish Film Festival would like to thank the following for their generous support and assistance.

Michelle McCarron Photography

Opening Party: Thursday, Sept. 23th 2010

At Picaro Tapas Cafe 16th Street (opposite the Roxie)

Opening: Thursday, Sept. 23th 2010

Closing: Saturday, Sept. 25th, 2010

We have an excellent program this year screening the very best of Ireland film.

On Friday night, grab your free pints of Magners Irish Cider and enjoy some wee short films during our  Magners n’ Shorts Program.

Other screenings will include:

His & Hers

One Hundred Mornings

The Bass Player

And many more to come!

Synopsis

Mark (Mark Doherty) is having a bad day. A struggling actor, he’s just been through the ordeal of yet another fruitless audition for a bit part in a movie.  With his long-suffering girlfriend about to walk out and his landlord ready to evict him he’s only got his best mate Pierce (Dylan Moran) and their joint ambition of writing a career-breaking film to sustain him.

Life’s not easy, but things are about to get worse…much worse, and then someone dies and things get really bad.

Synopsis

Set in a world upended by a complete breakdown of society, two couples hide out in a lakeside cabin hoping to survive the crisis. As resources run low and external threats increase, they forge an uneasy alliance with their self-sufficient hippie neighbour. With no news from the outside world they can’t know how long they must endure living in such close quarters, and with such limited supplies.

Unspoken animosity fills the air, and a suspected affair is driving a wedge between them all. Poorly equipped to cope in a world without technology and saddled with completely conflicting worldviews, everything begins to disintegrate. Finally, each of them faces a critical decision they never thought they’d have to make.

One Hundred Mornings is one of three films funded by the Irish Film Board’s Catalyst Project, designed to give up-and-coming filmmakers the opportunity to produce a low-budget feature film. Filmed over twenty days in County Wicklow, Ireland for a total budget of €275,000, it is writer/director Conor Horgan’s first feature. The film showcases the acting talents of Ciaran McMenamin (The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce), Alex Reid (The Descent) Rory Keenan (Intermission), and Kelly Campbell (Bachelors Walk). It also features the exceptional location photography of DoP Suzie Lavelle.

Synopsis

In this eloquent, witty homage to his father, filmmaker Niall McKay wrestles with his family’s unsettling past to overcome his fear of commitment. As Niall helps his elderly father Jim, a jazz bass player, return home to Ireland, father and son revisit Niall’s tumultuous childhood with an abusive, unpredictable mother and a musician father who was often on the road. It’s a parallel journey into Niall’s admiration for his father and his innermost doubts about love, and their conversations take on a confessional quality as they reveal their darkest moments. But the film lyrically (and sometimes limerickly) takes us full circle, capturing joyous moments of healing and celebration. Shot in Switzerland, France, Ireland and the US, geography and the idea of home play prominent roles. Scored with Irish jazz and, particularly, Jim’s bass, the music is much more than a soundtrack, and the film is not unlike the tunes Jim strums as it explores and captures the nuances, tones and oscillations of life and relationships. Striking many poignant chords, the filmmaker’s evolving notions of family and commitment will charm and amuse. — Carrie Lozano

One Hundred Mornings

One Hundred Mornings

The San Francisco Irish Film Festival is proud to announce it will be screening Conor Horgan’s One Hundred Mornings at its 2010 program.

Synopsis

Set in a world upended by a complete breakdown of society, two couples hide out in a lakeside cabin hoping to survive the crisis. As resources run low and external threats increase, they forge an uneasy alliance with their self-sufficient hippie neighbour. With no news from the outside world they can’t know how long they must endure living in such close quarters, and with such limited supplies.

Unspoken animosity fills the air, and a suspected affair is driving a wedge between them all. Poorly equipped to cope in a world without technology and saddled with completely conflicting worldviews, everything begins to disintegrate. Finally, each of them faces a critical decision they never thought they’d have to make.

One Hundred Mornings is one of three films funded by the Irish Film Board’s Catalyst Project, designed to give up-and-coming filmmakers the opportunity to produce a low-budget feature film. Filmed over twenty days in County Wicklow, Ireland for a total budget of €275,000, it is writer/director Conor Horgan’s first feature. The film showcases the acting talents of Ciaran McMenamin (The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce), Alex Reid (The Descent) Rory Keenan (Intermission), and Kelly Campbell (Bachelors Walk). It also features the exceptional location photography of DoP Suzie Lavelle.

Synopsis

From kitchens, living rooms, and hallways across the Irish midlands, His & Hers delightfully combines observation and charm to tell a 90-year-old love story through the voices of 70 women. This intimate gender and cultural snapshot explores a womans relationships with the men in her life—father, boyfriend, husband, son. Following sequentially from little girl to old woman, each character portrait is woven with the others into one perfectly crafted cinematic quilt.

His & Hers is an enchanting and affectionate appreciation for woman in all her versatility. Award-winning short film director Ken Wardrop (Undressing My Mother, The Herd) has applied his signature style, marking an accomplished feature debut.

His & Hers won the Audience award in the Dublin International Film Festival, The Feature Award in the Galway Film Fleadh, an IFTA for Best Feature Documentary and the Cinematography Award at the Sundance Film Festival 2010.

San Francisco Irish Film Festival from Media Factory on Vimeo.

The San Francisco Irish Film Festival and Magnolia Pictures are proud to present a special FREE screening of Ondine.
Email info@sfirishfilm.com to receive your free ticket to the screening. But hurry! Only the first 200 will receive a ticket!

When:

Tuesday, June 8th 2010
7:30pm

Where:

ONE Embarcadero Center, Promenade Level, San Francisco

Where is that REALLY?

On the corner of Clay and Battery