A scene from “I Am Traveller,” which is narrated by “Love/Hate” star John Connors.
By Orla O’Sullivan
The Craic Fest returns next month and, for the first time in its 19 years, presents documentary films only.
This doesn’t signal a change in an annual Irish film festival that typically has some features, the festival’s creator told the Echo. It was just chance. “The documentaries coming out this past year were very strong,” Terence Mulligan explained.
The weekend event (Thursday, March 2-Saturday, March 4) returns to the same cinema as before, at 260 West 23rd St. in Manhattan, though it’s now known as Cinépolis Chelsea.
A rebel or outsider theme connects the six screenings, most of which offer a chance to meet some of the filmmakers afterwards. Several are also having their first screening here.
Friday night’s U.S. premiere of “Rebel Rossa” is sold out. The life and legacy of Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, a Fenian born in County Cork in 1831, is examined by two of his great-grandchildren. One of them, Williams Rossa Cole, will attend for a Q&A.
The festival concludes with the tale of a much more recent republican, Bobby Sands, who died on hunger strike in a Belfast prison 35 years ago. His quest to be recognized as a political prisoner is addressed in “66 Days,” to be screened at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 4.
Sands, who was 27 when he died, was, “catapulted to almost mythological status,” said director Brendan Byrne. Yet, he told the Echo, “I always felt that we didn't ever really know the man behind the face on the gable wall.” (There’s a mural of Sands on Belfast’s Falls Road, a nationalist stronghold.)
“The feedback we've received reflects that we've managed to provide an evenly balanced portrayal of an extremely volatile period in Northern Ireland's history,” Byrne added.
Black 47, an Irish folk rock band fond of a rebel song that disbanded in 2014, is the topic of the documentary “Fanatic Heart." It opens Craic Fest with a combination of a screening and a drinks party. The band’s front man and Echo columnist Larry Kirwan will be on hand for a Q&A.
The award-winning and critically-acclaimed “Crash and Burn” features Tommy Byrne, a racing driver from County Louth who competed in five Formula One races in the 1982 season, while also winning the British Formula Three championship the same year. Another type of outsider is explored by “I Am Traveller,” narrated by Traveller and star of Irish TV series “Love/Hate” John Connors. He will be at the Saturday afternoon screening.
And finally, there’s “Puck O’ The Irish,” which examines how participation in Canada’s national sport might have helped Irish immigrants assimilate into mainstream society. The film goes even further, suggesting that ice hockey might have grown out of the Irish game hurling. Presented by former Clare hurler Ger Loughnane, it also opens this week at the Toronto Irish Film Festival.
Sam Kingston, who co-produced with director Éamonn Ó Cualáin, both of Fócas Films in Connemara, said it’s possible that they might do a follow-up film on the Irish ice hockey connection south of the border in the U.S.
Kingston got the idea for the film, despite the lack of ice hockey in Ireland (just one team, from Belfast, plays in the main, regional league and “the Republic,” he notes, “doesn't have one proper rink”).
“I stumbled across a list of Stanley Cup winners and noticed names like the Shamrocks and St. Pats. I start reading more about Irish links in hockey and saw Irish surnames everywhere,” the West Cork native told the Echo.
“The icing on the cake was when I learned of a town in Nova Scotia called Windsor that called the town the birthplace of hockey and linked hurling to that birth.”
Advance tickets for the Craic Film Fest can be purchased at www.thecraicfest.com and cost from $10 to $30, for film-and-drinks tickets.
