It’s March… My goodness. How did that happen. We must have been busy…

We’ve recently been producing a website for an author friend of ours Ivan Robertson. He’s someone we’ve known for a while and who’s written work for us, including the low budget The Angelus, an Irish Film Board Short Short a few years ago. It toured on 50 prints around Ireland with Bruce Almighty, so quite well known to a few people. A spoof of Ireland’s Angelus on television, it’s even spawned a few spoofs itself.

Ivan is an author and we’re publishing with him a set of short stories entitled Routes 1&9. A collection of ten stories covering the distance between a roadside motel in Oregon, a gas station in Ohio, a dead man’s basement in Upstate New York, and the Harry Truman Museum. Some of the stories were first published in The Stinging Fly and Books Ireland.

We’re releasing the stories progressively, people can download the audiobook format, the PDFs or listen directly on the site. Heck, there’s even a podcast. Ivan writes a mean blog as well, an interesting twist on what a writer’s blog can be.

Anyway, hope you enjoy, please check it out. www.ivanrobertson.com

First of all, thank you to all of you who picked up the DVD of 32A. It means a lot to us that so many of you rented the DVD. In fact a lot of you bought it which is amazing. We’ve had wonderful comments and feedback from everyone, which is much appreciated, thanks to all.

Now it’s Christmas and hopefully a few of you will be getting up to a DVD of 32A in your stocking. And in case Santa doesn’t pop one in, you’ll be glad to hear that 32A is on RTE2 this coming New Year’s Eve at 9.00PM. We’re not quite a Morecambe and Wise Christmas Special but it’s still nice to be part of so many people’s Christmas.

It’s like picking up mercury… or herding cats… or supporting the Irish soccer team… Keeping 32A off BitTorrent can feel like a pretty futile exercise however worthy.

So, while we’d really appreciate if people bought the DVD we realise that many people are watching downloaded copies. So we just decided we might as well up a virtual Tip Jar. So if you enjoyed 32A. perhaps you might like deposit a few shekels in it. All of which will help us get to our next project. Cheers…

32A got a nice recommendation on the Afternoon Show on RTE 1 this afternoon which was terrific.

And the wonderful Ian Dempsey on TodayFM gave 32A great mention on the show. His daughter has apparently watched it 450 times…

We’re happy to see these running on the streets of Dublin… a great move from our distributors, Element Pictures.

The cover art is in… getting closer now

Great news! The DVD of 32A will be released in Ireland on Friday, October 16th. Available to purchase on that day directly via this site and our distributor, Element. We’ll also be available for rent in Xtravision and other stores nationwide.

You can pre-order on Amazon.co.uk. It’ll be a little longer there, a couple of weeks. I’ll have Irish links up as soon as we have them.

32A is being shown in Dromahaire next weekend as part of the Made in Leitrim festival, screened by Cinema North West.

From the CNW prrogramme…

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In recent years, Leitrim and the surrounding counties has become the base for a number of filmmakers. It’s also host to a unique venue in Ireland, Cinema North West, a touring cinema which highlights world cinema.

This weekend these two come together in a celebration of recent films by these filmmakers in the village of Dromahair.

As our industry faces its most serious challenges in decades it’s a chance to come and see some of the work that has been made locally to date.

The programme is:

Saturday 5th September
3.00 – surprise Kids movie
7.00 – 32A, directed by Marian Quinn
9.00 – Fall into Half Angel, directed by Roisin Loughrey
9:30 – Korea, directed by Cathal Black

Sunday 6th September
3.00 – surprise Kids movie
5:30 – Three Days in Summer, directed by Ronan Gallagher
7.00 – Teamhair (Tara), directed by Colm Stapleton
9.00 – Na Coisithe (The Walkers), directed by Johnny Gogan

32A, directed by Marian Quinn and produced by Tommy Weir, both based in Dromahair, is a multi-award winning feature which tells the story of 13-year old Maeve and her three best friends in Dublin of 1979.

Fall into Half Angel, directed by Manorhamilton based Roisin Loughrey, has won several awards, it tells the story of two trapeze artists who used to go out together but who must still remain on intimate terms. Roisin also has an exhibition opening in Leitrim Sculpture Centre on Friday 18th September.

Korea, directed by Cathal Black, designed by Sligoman Frank Conway, is a classic in Irish film history. Shot in and around Dromahair, this adaptation of a John McGahern short story is set in the 1950s. It tells of a father’s attempt to get his son to enlist for the Korean war.

Three Days in Summer, directed by Mohill-based Ronan Gallagher, is a documentary about his neighbour, the late John McGahern.

Teamhair (Tara), directed by Riverstown based Colm Stapleton, is a documentary focussing on the Hill of Tara and her 5,500 year long history. It explores the web of spiritual and temporal power that has held a fascination for Ireland against the current backdrop of the the construction of the M3.

Na Coisithe (The Walkers), directed by Dromahaire based Johnny Gogan, profiles his grandfather, a poet, politician and inventor of words. In 1915, the Leitrim revolutionary, Séan MacDiarmada asked Liam Gógan if there was a word for ‘republic’ in Irish. There wasn’t, but Gogan came up with the word “poblacht’ and it ended up the first word in the 1916 Proclamation.

Well, we’ve gotten some excellent reviews in Germany thanks to the sterling efforts of our distributor Fugu Films and coproducer Flying Moon. Now the only English links below are the two ExBerliner magazine articles, but for the others we did a quick Google Translate and have pulled a quote or two out.

Thomas Vorwerk – www.satt.org
“A film by Marian Quinn, who also worked as an actress, sister of Aidan, but also aesthetically a revelation”

Hendrike Bake – www.programmkino.de
“a film for teenagers and adults: tender, wistful, funny, very close to the experiences and emotions of the girls”

Diego Hernandez – Exberliner 73, June 2009 (pdf, e)
“Unlike many others of its kind, this film actually manages to evoke the spirit of pre-teen girls as they discover the joys and frustrations of finding an identity” Also ExBerliner featured an interview with Marian – Exberliner 73 (pdf, engl)

Michael Pöppl – Zitty 13 / 2009 (pdf)
“The film lives primarily from the naturalness of the group of girls, perfect acting.”

Thorsten Krüger – Blickpunkt:Film (pdf)
“a gorgeous, half-autobiographical memory of youth”

Manfred Riepe – epd Film (pdf)
“an atmospheric, lushly staged teenage comedy”

I’ve blogged over the past few years about Four Eyed Monsters from their innovative podcasts to their launch on YouTube. It’s great to see their work finally being seen as the pioneering work it was.

Arin Crumley’s follow on projects, DIY Days and From Here to Awesome have been favourites of ours. I particularly enjoyed his contributions to this panel discussion on YouTube focussing on digital distribution and open source cinema.