Film Fleadh celebrates Canada

A celebration of cinema in Canada will take place in Galway next week as part of the annual Film Fleadh, which runs from July 8-13

Canada is Ireland’s largest co-production partner outside of the UK, thanks to a treaty signed by the two countries in 1989.

This year’s Galway Film Fleadh in partnership with Telefilm Canada, is celebrating that 25 years of co-production between the countries by showcasing a wide selection of the best in New Canadian Cinema and bringing some of Canada’s leading filmmaking talent to Galway.

Films on offer include Stay, starring Aidan Quinn and Taylor Schilling (of Orange is the New Black), which was shot in Canada and Connemara, and The Grand Seduction, starring Brendan Gleeson as a mischievous, unemployed fisherman in a sleepy village in Newfoundland.

Canada has a long tradition of documentary filmmaking and the Fleadh will screen titles such as Our Man in Tehran, the true story behind Ben Affleck’s thriller Argo (2012), as well as Lunarcy, a humorous portrait of visionaries, geeks and wackos united by their obsession with the moon.

Galway will host a delegation of Canadian filmmakers who will participate in Question and Answer sessions with the audience after screenings. Films being shown will include The Auction, a bittersweet study of personal sacrifice in economically depressed rural Quebec; Rhymes for Young Ghouls, an genre-bending debut drama; and Another House, a moving family drama starring three generations of great Quebecois actors.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.