FIRST night of new Millennium Film Club opened in LIT Moylish on Tuesday 4 with panache, 8pm show preceded by the splash and dash of party.
Club founders, the college’s Gerry Meagher in charge of Theatre Studies, and programmer Declan McLaughlin, drew in a crowd of all ages (o18) to view Paolo Sorrentini’s ‘YOUTH’. Its 2.5hrs of art house confusion tried this hack’s patience, although Michael Caine and Paul Dano’s performances lifted the script out of its cowbell symphony in the Swiss Alps. Bah.
Tuesday 11 presents an opportunity to see ‘Bobby Sands: 66 Days’. This is an outstanding and impartial piece of film making that is part biography, part documentary. Brendan J Byrne is the brain behind it (o12s rating).
From David Heath to Paisley to Clinton to Fintan O’Toole, to peers and neighbours from the Falls Road, to Tim Pat Coogan, retired RIC and British Army frontliners and former US ambassador Sean Donlon, they speak for how it was for them.
That Sands’ election as MP was as much by default of voters faced with little else is also eloquent.
Motivation and execution are explored and of course, legacy issues. A clip of his mother at the funeral and her raw, most beautiful appeal for peace is stand-out.
Look ahead then to Tuesday 18 for a Spanish movie, ‘Marshland’. 1980s style thriller set in the spare glare of an Andalucian swamp.
Tickets for remaining seven films October 11 to December 6 are €8/ €6/ €5, the season bundle is €50.
