Irish Movies Make A Mark At Tribeca

Vincent Murphy talks to some of Ireland's top emerging film-making talent, whose work was on display at the recent Tribeca Film Festival in New York

Tribeca's been a happy stomping ground for Irish cinema over the past few years. Four films including Neil Jordan's Ondine featured at the Robert De Niro-founded showcase last year.

Ciaran Hinds won best actor for his role in Conor McPherson's film The Eclipse in 2009, and Eileen Walsh was best actress for her role in Eden the year before that.

It's a trend the Irish Film Board is keen to see continue.

"We've been courting Tribeca for the last number of years," explains Teresa McGrane, its deputy chief executive.

"Every year we invite the selectors over, and they spend about two days in Dublin looking at all the latest Irish films, and all the new talent that's coming through."

One of those spotted by this year's selectors, was the new feature film Lotus Eaters from Alexandra McGuinness, daughter of U2 manager Paul McGuinness, which made its world premiere at the festival.

"It follows the story of a girl called Alice," she told me in the hours before her movie debuted, at a reception in the Consul General's residence in Manhattan.

"It centers around a group of friends, and a love story between Alice and Charlie, and is told through a series of parties in a summer in London.

"She's at a period in her life where she is kind of lost, in her mid-twenties, that I think a lot of people go through. She's been waylaid, she doesn't know where she's going next in her life, and she's trying to find that out.

"It's so exciting to be here. We've never shown it to an audience before."

The movie, which is shot in soft black-and-white, attracted quite a bit of attention, not least because of its focus on fashion.

"A lot of people we've spoken to today in various interviews have been from fashion magazines who love that element of it," says Antonio Campbell-Hughes, the star of the movie.

Campbell-Hughes, who was a nominee for the Irish Film and Television Awards (IFTA) in the Rising Star category this year, believes New York was the perfect place to premiere the film.

"There's quite a vibrant fashion culture here, and the film is choc-a-full of fashion references - amazing clothes, lots of Chanel, Van Dior."

Among those spotted attending the premiere of Lotus Eaters were Michael Stipe of REM, and The Edge from U2.

Another Irish film that went down a treat with audiences was Brendan Gleeson's new movie The Guard, which also stars Don Cheadle.

It premiered at the Sundance Festival earlier in the year, but the comedy about an FBI agent and a Garda Sergeant, topped many critic's must-see lists for Tribeca.

It's directed by John Michael McDonagh, brother of the playwright Martin McDonagh, who previously worked with Gleeson on In Bruges.

It's one of two vehicles for Brendan Gleeson at the festival - the other one was a short movie called Noreen directed by his son Domhnall.

"Funnily enough, my father asked me if he could be in it," smiles Domhnall, when I asked him if his father took much convincing to star in the film.

"I had given him the script just for notes, basically. I hadn't thought of asking him to do it because I didn't know if it would be awkward or if he'd want to or if it was up to scratch, you know!

"And I was really lucky - he loved it. He said 'Are you going to give me a job?', and I said 'Yes. Absolutely! Of course if you want'."

Domhnall is best known for his work in front of cameras, having starred in minor roles in the Harry Potter series of movies, and True Grit.

But he says the feedback, especially from American audiences, for his directorial debut - which along with his father also stars his brother Brian - has been terrific.

He has enjoyed using the opportunity to network with other industry people during the Tribeca festival.

"The business end of things I wouldn't be that good at," he says, "But I've only been here a couple of days and already I've met brilliant people on all ends of the spectrum - business people, artistic people and everybody in-between. It is sort of wonderful that way."

As Gleeson and his friends took in the amazing view from the Consul-General's residence, he was amused to see how focused on business many at the reception were.

"Even downstairs here, with the great view, people are talking. And you think they are going to be talking about the view. But they're not. They're talking business, which I find kind of weird. But it's great. It obviously does a job, and hopefully many more projects will come out of it."

Audiences who fell in love with the fictional love story Once which earned an Oscar for Best Song for its stars Glen Hansard and Market Irglova, will have been intrigued by a new US-made documentary about the pair.

As fans know, the two fell in in love during the making of Once, when life imitated art, but have subsequently split up.

Their break-up is depicted in heart-breaking detail in the documentary The Swell Season, which follows Hansard and Irglova on tour with their band as the ride their Oscar success and find themselves struggling to deal with fame.

The documentary received warm praise from critics after its screening at Tribeca. Hollywood star Orlando Bloom starred in a new film The Good Doctor directed by Lance Daly, the Irish director behind the award-winning Kisses, and also featured at Tribeca was an Irish-French co-production The Hideaways, described as a supernatural thriller.

Along with Gleeson's Noreen, there were two other Irish short films screening at Tribeca.

Pentecost directed by Peter McDonald was nominated for an IFTA and was an award winner at the Cork Film Festival last year.

And Switch the latest short from Dubliner Thomas Hefferon, who was selected for Tribeca for the third year running.

"It's become an annual thing for me almost," he says, "I've been to so many festivals where, to be honest, you go and meet people and you make contacts and it's great. But you go home and you think to yourself - what did I get out of it?

"But I think the difference with Tribeca is that they genuinely want to help you. Just today I got loads of emails from agents and production companies out here in New York who want to meet me. And they organizers set these up for me - the guys who run the festival are making calls and sending out emails on my behalf and I've never come across that in any other festival."

There may not have been any awards for the Irish films at this year's festival, but hopefully there will be a longer term prize for some of the young Irish talent on display.