Foyle Film Festival 2008 Launches

Derry's Foyle Film Festival is set to take place between November 21 and 29.
Now in its 21st year, the Foyle Film Festival is the flagship project of the multi-media Nerve Centre.
From its earliest days, it has pursued an integrated development strategy, linking together the different art forms - film, music, animation, new media - across the interlocking sectors of production, training, education and exhibition.
The key elements of Foyle Film Festival are its thematic content, diverse programme strands and special industry events, which have been developed to meet the evolving interests of its audience. The ethos is to offer a range of contemporary, classic, cultural and new cinema to a local and visiting audience and to provide access to cultural cinema to the general cinema-going public in this region.
In addition, the festival offers a stand-alone education programme targeting schools and colleges with a series of curriculum-based feature films, documentaries, workshops, presentations and outreach screenings, which runs for five days of the event. The education programme offers additional outreach events at colleges and other arts centres, including the Strule Arts Centre in Omagh, Omagh College, and the Regional Cultural Centre in Letterkenny. A new theme is adopted each year, which reflects and influences the content of the main and education programmes.
The festival is also committed to showcasing indigenous work and providing opportunities for the local industry to meet and hear leading experts from the film industry in a masterclass and workshop situation. These have included workshops with special effects experts, composers, writers, cinematographers, actors and animators plus film historians and film journalists.
Past guests of the festival have included Julie Christie, Neil Jordan, Wim Wenders, Kenneth Branagh, Jenny Agutter, Julien Temple, Christiane Kubrick, Andrew Eaton, Rob Coleman - to name but a few.
The Foyle Film Festival offers filmmakers the opportunity to compete for the prestigious Light in Motion (LIM) Film Awards in five categories: Best Irish Short, Best International Short, Best Animation, Best Documentary and Best Feature. Previous winners and competitors have proceeded to win what is known as the 'ultimate' in film recognition, the Oscar. Winners include: Martin McDonagh, Director of 'Six Shooter', Andrea Arnold, Director of 'Wasp', Adam Elliot, Director of 'Harvie Krumpet' and Eric Armstrong, Director of 'Chubbchubbs'.
Independently funded British feature films (fiction and documentary) screening at Foyle Film Festival also automatically become qualified for the prestigious British Independent Film Awards. BIFA also consider foreign independent films for the Best Foreign Independent Film Category.
In 2007, 'Control' won 5 awards at BIFA - including Best British Independent Film, Best Director (Anton Corbijn), Most Promising Newcomer (Sam Riley), Best Performance by a Supporting Actor (Toby Kebbell) and the Douglas Hickox Award (Anton Corbijn), while 'Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten' picked up the BIFA for Best British Documentary.
The Festival Club also provides the best in contemporary music and an annual Movie Quiz.
Further information is available at: www.foylefilmfestival.org.
(KMcA)