The IndieCork Festival today announced that Eliza Hittman’s Sundance winner Beach Rats is to open the fifth edition on October 8th.
We’re delighted to have secured this as the Opening Film of the 2017 festival. We admire Eliza Hittman greatly and our relationship with her goes back many years, screening all her early short films and indeed she visited Cork at that time. In 2013, at the first edition of IndieCork, we screened Eliza’s debut feature It Felt Like Love well in advance of its theatrical release anywhere. It was later cited by the New York Times as one of the 20 best films of 2014.
Úna Feely, Co-Director – IndieCork
Beach Rats, is a raw, exquisitely crafted, uncompromising drama starring newcomer Harris Dickinson as the smouldering intense Frankie, a troubled teen cogitating his sexual identity, in the break out performance of the year.
Frankie, an aimless teenager on the outer edges of Brooklyn, who’s having a miserable summer. With his father dying and his mother wanting him to find a girlfriend, Frankie escapes the bleakness of his home life by causing trouble with his delinquent friends. As Frankie struggles to reconcile his competing desires, his decisions leave him hurtling toward irreparable consequences.
We’re pleased to have such a special film open the festival, showcasing a film and director that won such a major award at Sundance. It proves the reasoning behind IndieCork, that such a film gets it’s break in Ireland here at this festival. There is lots more indie talent to see and discover over the 8 days of the festival.
Úna Feely, Co-Director – IndieCork
Beach Rats is released in the UK and Ireland by Peccadillo Pictures later in the year.
IndieCork runs from October 8th to 15th 2017.