All the Cork-based films featuring at this year’s Dublin International Film Festival

By Yay Cork February 1, 2024January 31, 2024

It’s a big year for Cork actors and filmmakers.

With our own Cillian Murphy nominated for an Oscar, a series of films made by Cork-based directors and writers are part of the programme for this year’s Dublin International Film Festival, which takes place from February 22nd to March 2nd.

Writer and director Lochlainn McKenna is nominated as part of the Discovery Awards for his short film Two for the Road, a poignant record of a boy’s adventures on the road with his alcoholic and nomadic father, one weekend at a time.

Based on McKenna’s short story Guinness and a Coke, the film was Oscar qualifying having won the Best Drama Short Award at the Galway Film Fleadh.

Director Oonagh Kearney’s Never Kill a Femboy on the First Date tells the story of a crossdresser’s one-night stand with an exhibitionist that turns life-threatening when a group of voyeurs discover he’s not a woman.

Allyn Quigley’s Yellow Belt tells the story of a young boy who encounters love for the first time in his Taekwondo class and as part of the feature films, Colin Hickey’s Perennial Light sees a young boy make the journey from childhood to adulthood,
where the haunting memory of his best friend’s sudden death triggers a turbulent inner struggle.

This touching black-and-white film sees Hickey using Passage West, Skibbereen and other parts of the county as the backdrop to the story.

The festival’s closing night gala will see West Cork director Pat Collins adaptation of John McGahern’s eponymous novel, telling
the story of a couple who move from London to a remote Irish town, creating a new life in the rural communities of 1980s Ireland.

The schedule is below if you’re in the capital and fancy showing some support to the Cork film crews: