Irish Films Screen At Edinburgh International Film Festival

The two Irish films 'Once' and 'Shrooms' are to screen at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Once, still going strong in the US, is the low-budget charmer that stole away the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival 2007. Written and directed by John Carney and produced by Martina Niland and David Collins with finance from Bord Scannan na hEireann/the Irish Film Board and RTE, ONCE is a modern-day musical set on the streets of Dublin.
It tells the story of a busker (Glen Hansard) who is nursing a broken heart and stalled ambitions and a young Czech immigrant (Marketa Irglova), as it follows their evolving relationship over an eventful week, as they write and record a number of songs.
'Shrooms' which was directed by Paddy Breathnach, is a horror film that tells the story of a group of American teens who go to rural Ireland in search of notoriously potent magic mushrooms. After finding and eating them, the teenagers start to see terrifying visions and one of them turns up horrifically mutilated and events spiral out of control as the friends are picked off one by one.
Produced by Robert Walpole and Paddy McDonald, Shrooms was financed by the IFB with NIFTC, Ingenious Investments, Capitol Films and TV3.
The Edinburgh International Film Festival is the longest continually running film festival in the world. Since starting in 1947 the festival has presented some of cinema's most important and exciting moments and played host to some of the world's greatest filmmakers. The festival is running from 15 - 26 August with ONCE and SHROOMS screening this coming weekend.
Both films are distributed by Buena Vista International (Ireland).
(DS/SP)