Lucky charm

>> Stephen Rea set to land at Cine Gael 2000

by JOANNE LATIMER

Did the spotlight on Irish cinema at the 1999 World Film Festival steal any thunder from Cine Gael? Not a chance. This collective of film fans is doing its thing again this winter, bringing little-seen Irish films to town. And with any luck, they'll even bring actor Stephen Rea over to close the festival in April. He has committed, so fingers are crossed that he'll show.

"I was thrilled when the World Film Festival ran the Irish spotlight," says Patrick Vallely, a founding committee member of Cine Gael. "It hasn't really affected us. We tend to screen different things, less box office. The festival buffs are festival buffs and they would've gone to the spotlight even if it wasn't Ireland. Ours is a different thing."

One of Cine Gael's focuses this year will be on emerging filmmakers. "The short film program that screens on March 30th was put together by Bo Mandevelle, the director of the Cork Film Festival," says Lynn Doyle, president of Cine Gael. "They're all new, young filmmakers starting out with their shorts. We've got Dream Kitchen, which won at the Galway Film Festival, and we've got Kristen Sheridan's award-winning short too."

The festival opener is a controversial feature by indie filmmaker Lodge Kerrigan. It's called Claire Dolan and its screenings at festivals have consistently been sold out. No film distributors, however, have taken the bait. We'll see why.

Documentaries to look out for include A Necklace of Wrens, about recently-deceased Limerick poet Michael Hartnett, and Famine Ship, about a sculptor commissioned to make a piece about the famine. Hartnett is on par with Seamus Heaney, and the film makes you long to read his original works.

Another promising documentary, US Boys, is a gritty look at rural life in the North of Ireland. It's about two old-timers who live alone, unmarried, on a farm. They're septuagenarians with a fear of modernity and women. It was filmed by a younger relative and covers a four-year span of their lives. A retrospective of Stephen Rea's films is scheduled to close the festival.

All Cine Gael evenings begin with a brief talk by someone knowledgeable about the film, and everyone's encouraged to go for a drink after the screening for an informal discussion.

"We've always wanted people to get together after the films to talk. We'd like to encourage that again this year," adds Vallely. :

Cine Gael kicks off with Claire Dolan on Thursday, January 27 at Concordia's De Seve Cinema at 7pm. Subsequent Cine Gael evenings are February 9 and 24, March 30 and April 13 and 27-29. Info: 481-3503