The 26th New Orleans Film Festival is currently taking place in the fabled Louisiana city. As part of the festival two Irish films will play: John Crowley’s emigration drama Brooklyn, and Lenny Abrahamson’s kidnap-survival drama Room.
Room sees writer Emma O’Donoghue adapt her own best-selling novel, which is told from the perspective of a five-year-old boy, Jack, who is being held captive in a small room along with his mother. To him the room is his world, but his mother knows different having been held there for 7 years.
The film stars Brie Larson (Short Term 12, The Spectacular Now), Jacob Tremblay (The Smurfs 2, Somnia), Joan Allen (The Bourne Supremacy, Nixon) and William H. Macy (Shameless, Magnolia). Also joining the cast are Sean Bridgers (Rectify), Tom McCamus (The Samaritan) and Megan Park (What If). Room is an Element Pictures and No Trace Camping production, in association with Telefilm Canada, Film4, and Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board. It will be released in Irish cinemas on January 29th.
Brooklyn is an adaptation of Colm Tóibín’s best-selling novel by the equally best-selling British author Nick Hornby. Set in the 1950s, the film sees a young woman move from a small town in Ireland to Brooklyn, where she has the opportunity for work, for a future and for love.
Intermission director Crowley has gathered an all-star Irish and British cast, that features Saoirse Ronan, Domhnall Gleeson, Emory Cohen, Jim Broadbent, and Julie Walters. Brooklyn is an Irish/British co-production from Wildgaze Films, Finola Dwyer Productions, Parallel Films and Item 7, with co-finance from Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board. It will be released in Irish cinemas on November 6th.
The New Orleans Film Festival has firmly established itself on the regional film fest circuit as one of the most reputable in the country. It was named by MovieMaker Magazine as one of the “25 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee” in their 2012, 2013, and 2014 editions, and it was also named by Premium Beat as one of the “Fifteen Fests You Should Enter.” The 2015 edition runs October 14th to 22nd.