As the Marché is to Cannes, the European Film Market is to the Berlin International Film Festival, the Berlinale. This year the Irish film industry will be well represented at both with the Mark Noonan directed, Aidan Gillen starring You’re Ugly Too playing in competition, and 9 films screening and 14 films selling at the EFM.
The festival, the EFM and other satellite events are attended by around 20,000 professionals from over 130 countries. Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board will have a stand in the Martin Gropius Bau: stand G7, upstairs on the balcony.
Three of the Irish films that featured at Sundance will screen at the EFM, namely Gerard Barrett’s Glassland, Irish/Danish co-production The Visit, and the Irish/Australian co-production Strangerland. Barrett ‘s next film Brain on Fire will also be selling to international distributors ahead of filming.
The Oscar nominated animation Song of the Sea will also screen, as well as Irish/German co-produced animation Two by Two – Ooops… The Ark is Gone (previously titled Ooops! Noah is Gone…), Vivienne deCourcy’s Dare to be Wild, Lisa Mulcahy’s The Legend of Longwood, Irish/French co-production A Turning Tide in the Life of Man, and Dieter Auner’s Dreams of a Clown (which showed at the Galway Film Fleadh and Cork Film Festival).
Films selling at this year’s EFM feature other Sundance favourites in John Crowley’s Brooklyn, which has already secured worldwide distribution via a $9m deal with Fox Searchlight, and Corin Hardy’s The Hallow. It will be joined by John Carney’s Sing Street, Lenny Abrahamson’s Room, Rebecca Daly’s Mammal, David Keating’s Cherry Tree, Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster, Terry McMahon’s Patrick’s Day, Ivan Kavanagh’s The Canal, Brian O’Malley’s Let Us Prey, Simon Pummell’s Brand New-U, Fiona Tan’s History’s Future, and Simon Dixon’s Tiger Raid.
There’s one more film that will be selling at the EFM, and it is definitely worth singling out. That film is the Irish-South African co-production Jadotville, directed by Richie Smyth. Jamie Dornan and Guillaume Canet are set to star in the film that starts shooting in Ireland later this year.
The film is based off Kevin Brodbin’s screenplay, and follows an Irish military commander in a stand-off with French and Belgian mercenaries in the Congo in the early 1960s.