Feast of European film at Town Hall Theatre

Mainstream films from all over Europe which were hits in their own countries will be screened at this year’s Subtitle Film Festival, being held at the City’s Town Hall Theatre from Friday, January 30 to Sunday, February 4.

This is the second year that Subtitle is taking place in Galway, and it follows on the success of last year, according to Richard Cook of the festival, which began life in Kilkenny in 2012 and expanded to Galway in 2013.

“The feedback was great and we want to build on audiences from last year.” Eight films will be screened over the Subtitle weekend. Some have never been seen in Ireland, while others were been in cinemas for a very short period, meaning that people may have missed them, he explains.

“There is a market for really good foreign language films that have come and gone in a short space. A lot cinema is pre-programmed so a film comes and it goes, even if it’s popular.” The films at Subtitle cover a 10-year span and include several which were released last year.

“We are not structured as a festival for producers, distributors or sales agents,” explains Richard. “We are just screening films that we really like for the public.”

A highlight of this year’s event is The Great Beauty from Italy. Premiered in Cannes in 2013, it won an Oscar, a Golden Globe and Bafta for Best Foreign Language Film in 2014. Its central character Jep Gambardella is an ageing Casanova, who learns to look past the nightclubs and parties of his native Rome to discover the city’s hidden beauty in a film that is like a love letter to the Italian capital. Also showing is the 2011 French comedy-drama The Intouchables about an unlikely friendship that develops between a wealthy quadriplegic and his ex-convict caretaker.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune