Belfast city is set to come alive over the next few days with the annual Belfast Film Festival which is set to take place until the 25th April.
The festival which is popular with people taking a vacation in Ireland is set to show over 100 film screenings in various venues across all quarters of the city including Belfast Waterfront, Queen’s Film Theatre, Movie House Dublin Road, Duncairn Centre and many more.
The opening night of the festival will feature a homecoming for Belfast-raised critic and filmmaker Mark Cousins whose feature, ‘I Am Belfast’, is set to screen. The documentary looks at Belfast through the eyes of a 10,000 year old woman.
The Belfast Film Festival is set to take place until the 25th April
In recent years Belfast city has reinventing itself as a cosmopolitan, urban city with heaps of Victorian and Edwardian character. People planning a trip to Ireland and to Belfast over the next few days can enjoy not only the city’s top attractions including Titanic Belfast but visitors also enjoy an action-packed itinerary during the festival.
Festival Director Michele Devlin said: ‘This is our 15th Festival and we really have grown in size and stature over the years. We now run a year-round programme of education and outreach activity and special events, but the highlight of our calendar will always be our Festival Fortnight.’
The closing night of the festival on the 24th sees the UK premiere of ‘The Survivalist’, the feature film debut of Northern Ireland filmmaker Stephen Fingleton whose Oscar-shortlisted film ‘SLR’ was screened at the Festival in 2014. ‘The Survivalist’ has also had its world premiere recently at the Tribeca Film Festival in the US.
Speaking about the festival, Richard Williams, CEO, Northern Ireland Screen said:‘Northern Ireland Screen seeks to provide the people of Northern Ireland with the opportunity to see as wide a range of films as possible, including those made by the wealth of home-grown creative talent. Through our continued support from DCAL for Belfast Film Festival, we can help achieve this goal and make a significant contribution to film culture, education and training, and at the same time respond to the department’s imperative of promoting equality, targeting poverty and social exclusion. We are delighted to note the various premieres of Northern Ireland Screen funded productions as part of this year’s festival – I Am Belfast, Shooting for Socrates and The Survivalist, as well as the numerous shorts from our up and coming film-making talent.’