The Kerry Film Festival, one of Ireland’s fastest growing regional film festivals took place over the last week, October 4th to 11th. The festival celebrates short films from around the globe, as well those from our own fair isle.
As part of the closing day of the festival organisers announced 9 winners across a range of categories, including Best International Narrative, Best Irish Narrative, and Best Documentary. The Best Irish Narrative was won by Niamh Heery’s gorgeous ode to the beauty of the bogs of the midlands Our Unfenced Country, with Dave Tynan’s Roy Keane based drama Rockmount, which previously picked up the Tiernan McBride Award for Best Short Drama at the Galway Film Fleadh, winning the audience award.
One of the highlights of the festival is the 50 hour challenge, which sees crews compete to make a film in just 50 hours. This year the winning film was The Deadline, by local production team Fools After School, who retained their title won last year.
The Kerry Film Festival is renowned for celebrating the work of young filmmaking talent through a well established and lively short film competition that has been supported and endorsed by luminaries from the world of film such as Cillian Murphy, director Paul Greengrass, Jeremy Irons, Liam Neeson, and Gabriel Byrne.
Here’s the full list of winners:
Best International Narrative
Mr. Invisible (UK) – Directed by Greg Ash
Best Irish Narrative
Our Unfenced Country – Directed by Niamh Heery
Best Animation
Mr. Plastimime (UK) – Directed by Daniel Greeves
Best Documentary
El Hijo De Ruby (Puerto Rico) -Directed by Gisela Rosario Ramos
Best Original Score
In A Mirror (Germany) -Directed by Orson Hentschel
Best Student Short
Call It Blue (Canada) – Directed by Julia Hendrickson
Youth Jury Prize
Suddenly (USA) – Directed by Merau Elbaz Belschner
50 hr Film Shoot winner
The Deadline – Directed by Fools After School
Audience Award
Rockmount – Directed by Dave Tynan