by Rose Rushe
UNDERLYING the strength of the Richard Harris International Film Festival (RHIFF), entering its third year, co-founder Zeb Moore flags a new dynamic to the event set for October holiday weekend. Enhancing the structure, actor Jared Harris (Mad Men, Lincoln) joins the board of directors and from 2016 to 2020, The Harris Estate is fully behind this three day platform of premiers, film shorts and features, Q&A with directors and celebrities, and multiple category competitions. In a new departure, the Harris family will engage in strategy with Hayman Harris, Limerick based, joining the board also.
“One of this year’s many changes is that creative direction is now between myself and Sylvia [Moore, wife and business partner]. We have taken over that,” Zeb Moore tells Arts page.
With confirmation of The Harris Estate committed for the next five years, the tie in with Newport Beach Film Festival in California is parallel, offering a platform to which the Irish diaspora as well as local film makers can aspire if screened and selected from the Limerick base.
“This year will see the introduction of a one-minute monologue competition run with Limerick School of Acting, with the festival looking at film clips and selecting them for competition. They will be adjudicated by the likes of Jared and Damien Harris [screenwriter, director]“.
Next, an image competition with the festival set to embrace theatrical and visual arts ultimately to harvest an image of the late Richard Harris that can be used on merchandise. The Australia based Thomas Delohery, known for his Harris portraiture, will adjudicate.
“2015 will be the first year that have open submissions for features and shorts, with three categories for short films: from the Mid West, those intended for Newport Beach and then National and International. All of which will be eligible for an audience award, voted for at their screening at 69 O’Connell Street.
“Feature films are invited from all genres and anywhere in the world and must be made since January 2013 for this year’s entry.”
Moore, himself a theatre and film actor/ producer with Magic Roundabout and others, looks forward to the glossy gala night that opens the festival, hosted by Jared and Allegra Harris and now to be a fundraiser at €35 a head. This is a ticket into the drinks reception at film venue No. 69 O’Connell Street, panel with celebrity guests, a premier screening and of course, the big party upstairs at George Boutique Hotel that rocks the rafters until late.
“Another thing we are trying to bring in prior to each feature screened is to have the director, or producer, cast or crew in for a question and answer session with the audience”.
The scope of RHIFF 2015 is huge but with the more muscular, visionary board secure up to 2020, “this brings us up to the European Capital of Culture [bid] and our profile nationally”.
This likeable Dub, living in Meelick with family, tells a tale of his round of Newport and Cannes festivals 2015 where on meeting the American character actor John C Riley, “he showed great interest in coming and had full knowledge of RHIFF, having heard it first from Colin Farrell”.
Clearly, what ever is going on is no one-horse show. The Moores are attuned keenly to “the infrastructure of people to support us and help us… we are eternally grateful to those who give to us on an annual basis”.
See www.richardharrisfilmfestival.com for ongoing updates.
