Irish Abroad: Deadly to play and Boorman to be awarded at Cinequest Film Festival

The 25th anniversary edition of the Cinequest Film Festival is set to present its Maverick Spirit Award to Rosario Dawson and John Boorman. Cinequest’s most prestigious accolade, the Maverick Spirit Award recognises bold, visionary and creative forces—the finest in the worlds of Silicon Valley innovation and the film arts. 

Boorman will be presented with his reward at a conversation and screening of his latest Irish set drama Queen & Country.

The film, which featured at the Cannes Film Festival, stars Caleb Landry Jones as an 18-year-old British man who joins the National Service and meets an amoral prankster who becomes his friend. They are assigned as instructors in a training camp while others are shipped out to fight in the Korean War.

The film also stars Pat Shortt, Sinead Cusack, Callum Turner, David Thewlis and Richard E. Grant. The film is set 10 years after Hope and Glory and centres on the same characters. It was part funded by Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board.

Aidan McAteer’s superb animated IFB funded short Deadly will also play at the festival. Deadly, which was the winner of the Don Quijote Award for Animation in Short Film at the Galway Film Fleadh, tells the story of Boney, a working stiff who doesn’t care about his dead-end job…until he meets a spirited little old lady called Bridie.

Cinequest Film Festival occurs February 24th – March 8th, in the Silicon Valley / San Jose, California.