Upcoming Film Events
Helen (Starting in 1 week, 5 days) Film
From: March 23, 2010 20:00 To: March 23, 2010 22:00
Location: Ballina Arts Centre
Helen (Dir: Christine Molloy & Joe Lawlor, Ireland/UK, 2008)Helen is a subtly drawn story of a young woman poised on the brink of adult life, and an auspicious feature debut for its writer-directors. Dubliners Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor (also known as ‘Desperate Optimists’) adopt the same approach as in their series of nine short films, the Civic Life Series – shooting in 35mm scope in mainly long takes, featuring local non professional actors – but here add an all-important element of storytelling. When a young woman, Joy, disappears, the police ask for help in staging a reconstruction. Helen (Annie ...
From: April 6, 2010 20:00 To: April 6, 2010 22:00
Location: Ballina Arts Centre
Let the Right One In (Dir: Tomas Alfredson, Sweden, 2008)Starring: Kare Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar and Henrik Dahl Let the Right One In is an angular and lusty teen horror movie based on John Ajvide Lindqvist’s bestseller in which lonesome 12-year-old Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) becomes smitten by a young, female vampire named Eli (Lina Leandersson). After initiating an adorable romance in the snow-coated forecourt of their glum housing complex, they soon realise that both of them are baying for blood. He’s privately fantasising about stabbing up his schoolyard tormentors with a pocket knife and she needs to sate an ...
Tony Manero (Starting in 1 month, 1 week) Film
From: April 20, 2010 20:00 To: April 20, 2010 22:00
Location: Ballina Arts Centre
Tony Manero (Dir: Pablo Larrain, Chile, 2008)Santiago, Chile, 1978: with the country in the grip of Pinochet's oppressive dictatorship, Raúl Peralta (Alfredo Castro), a man in his 50s, indulges in the fantasy that he is disco king Tony Manero, John Travolta's white-suited, fleet-footed ladies' man in Saturday Night Fever. Inspired by repeated viewings of the film at his local fleapit cinema, he forms and choreographs a low-rent dance troupe, performing at a rundown bar on the outskirts of the city. His fantasy is already becoming a sinister fixation, as he seems incapable of keeping nefarious activities in check, when national ...
35 Shots of Rum (Starting in 1 month, 3 weeks) Film
From: May 4, 2010 20:00 To: May 4, 2010 22:00
Location: Ballina Arts Centre
35 Shots of Rum (Dir: Claire Denis, France/Germany, 2008)35 Shots of Rum opens on a long, wordless train sequence as Lionel (Alex Descas) a train conductor of African descent and his student daughter Josephine (Mati Diop) who is eager to assert her independence, make their separate ways home after work. Their tender relationship is evident as they share a meal in their cramped apartment on the far outskirts of Paris. They are on close terms with neighbours Gabrielle (Nicole Dogué), a taxi driver with a long-standing crush on widower Lionel, and Noé (Gregoire Colin), a cool-looking guy with a cat ...
The Black Balloon (Starting in 2 months, 1 week) Film
From: May 18, 2010 20:00 To: May 18, 2010 22:00
Location: Ballina Arts Centre
The Black Balloon (Dir: Elissa Down, Australia, 2008)Thomas (Rhys Wakefield) is about to turn sixteen and start yet another new school but his problems are a little more complex than just being the new boy. His older brother Charlie (Luke Ford) is autistic and suffers from ADHD, so Thomas is often forced to be more keeper than playmate to him. And with their Mother under doctor’s orders to rest in her final months of pregnancy, Thomas’ responsibilities to look after his brother are only increasing.The Black Balloon handles Thomas’ resentment of his helpless elder brother, a selfish but very human ...
Recent Film Events
From: July 2, 2009 20:00 To: July 2, 2009 22:00
Location: Ballina Arts Centre
Sound + Vision: Dylan on ScreenThe Last Waltz (Dir: Martin Scorsese, USA, 1978)Thursday 2nd July, 8pm The Last Waltz was a concert by Dylan collaborators and cohorts, The Band, held on Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1976, at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. Advertised as the end of The Band's illustrious touring career, the concert saw The Band joined by more than a dozen special guests, including Paul Butterfield, Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, Ronnie Hawkins, Dr. John, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Ringo Starr, Muddy Waters, Ronnie Wood, Neil Young and Bob Dylan. The event was filmed by director Martin Scorsese and ...
From: October 13, 2009 20:00 To: October 13, 2009 22:00
Location: Ballina Arts Centre
Starring: Francois Bègaudeau, Franck Keita, Esmèralda Oeurtani, and Rachel Regulierand Nassim Amrabt.There will not be a better film this year than Laurent Cantet’s The Class, which focuses on a year in a schoolroom presided over by a young teacher, Marin (Bègaudeau). The school room is in a rough Parisian neighbourhood and the student body is racially-mixed (black, Arab, Asian). Marin’s particular challenge is, as with any teacher, trying to instil a love of learning in these often recalcitrant adolescents, but the particular setting and makeup of his charges renders his situation extraordinary. Extraordinary, too, are the ways he deals with ...
From: October 27, 2009 20:00 To: October 27, 2009 22:00
Location: Ballina Arts Centre
Starring: Kelly O’Neill, Shane Curry, Paul Roe, Neili Conroy On the fringes of Dublin, Kylie and Dylan – two pre-teen kids – live in a suburban housing estate devoid of life, colour and the prospects of escape. Kylie lives with five other sisters, her overworked mother and in a constant dread of her uncle’s unwelcome visits. Next door, Dylan lives in the shadow of an abusive alcoholic father and the memory of an elder brother who ran away from home two years previously. After a violent altercation with his father, Dylan runs away from home and Kylie decides to run away ...
From: November 10, 2009 20:00 To: November 10, 2009 22:00
Location: Ballina Arts Centre
Starring: Toni Servillo, Anna Bonaiuto, Piera Degli Espoti, PaoloGraziosi, Giulio Bossetti, and Flavio Bucci. Paolo Sorrentino’s magisterial Il Divo reaches into the tumultuous political history of post-war Italy to craft a dazzling portrait of one of the period’s most complex and ambiguous figures, Giulio Andreotti (Servillo). Arguably the most important Italian politician of the last fifty years, Andreotti entered politics in 1946 and led seven governments, turning his Christian Democratic party into a force that ran Italy in what was essentially a one-party system. To do so he clearly required a man of singular abilities – but Andreotto was, and ...
From: November 24, 2009 20:00 To: November 24, 2009 22:00
Location: Ballina Arts Centre
Starring: Richard Jenkins, Haaz Sleiman, Danai Jekesai Gurira, Hiam Abbass Thomas McCarthy’s heartfelt, often funny, tale of friendship is the self-discovery of Connecticut widower Walter Vale (Jenkins), who befriends the Syrian drummer Tarek (Sleiman) and the Senegalese street vendor (Gurira) who have rented his rarely visited pied a terre through the kind of scam that victimises immigrants in New York every day. Their uneasy meeting turns into a tentative friendship and Walter, a stiff WASP who exhibits many symptoms of ‘white man’s disease’, begins playing the conga drum under Tarek’s patient instruction. Anything he does requiring rhythm is an instant ...
From: December 1, 2009 13:00 To: December 1, 2009 17:00
Location: Ballina Arts Centre
Oska Bright Film Festival: ON THE ROADOska Bright, a unique film event, is brought to Mayo by the Arts & Disability Networking Partnership an initiative of The Arts Council, Arts & Disability Ireland and Mayo County Council Arts Office. Oska Bright is the first film festival anywhere in the world to be run by, and for, people with a learning disability. Now in its sixth year, the Festival will visit Mayo for the first time, presenting an enormous, exciting and inspiring range of short films including animations, documentaries, a soap-opera and western. A highlight of the day will be the screening ...
From: December 8, 2009 20:00 To: December 8, 2009 22:00
Location: Ballina Arts Centre
Bronson (Dir: Nicolas Winding Refn, UK, 2008)Nicolas Winding Refn’s portrait of notorious lifer and the UK’s ‘most violent prisoner’, Charles Bronson, is an ambitious and brave attempt to create a biopic of a man who has spent 34 years of his life in prison, and 28 of those in solitary confinement. Whilst confronting the extreme brutality which has characterised Bronson’s life, the film endeavours to get to the heart of such a desperate existence. Born Michael Peterson, Bronson’s ambition was simply to be famous. With a limited sphere of opportunities, the criminal world offered a theatre in which he could ...
From: December 22, 2009 20:00 To: December 22, 2009 22:00
Location: Ballina Arts Centre
A Christmas Tale (Dir: Arnaud Desplechin, France, 2008)Arnaud Desplechin’s ‘A Christmas Tale’ (Un conte de Noel) is a French comedy-drama about a dysfunctional family that reunites for the Christmas holiday. Three generations of the Vuillard family are brought together for a Christmas weekend. Estrangement, mental illness and promiscuity arise as issues during the reunion, as the family members seek peace with one another. Starring Catherine Deneuve in the role of matriarch Junon Vuillard, the film features strong support from Jean-Paul Rousillon as her much older husband, Mathieu Almaric as their prodigal son and Emmanuelle Devos as the Jewish fiancée the ...
From: January 5, 2010 20:00 To: January 5, 2010 22:00
Location: Ballina Arts Centre
Ballina Film presents KurosawaSeven Samurai (Dir: Akira Kurosawa, Japan, 1954)Set in 16th century Japan, Seven Samurai follows the story of a village of farmers that hire seven masterless samurai (ronin) to combat bandits who will return after the harvest to steal their crops.They succeed in hiring the veteran Kambei Shimada who advises that they need six other samurai to protect their lands. Kambei recruits the necessary five samurai and the brave jester Kikuchiyo and move to the village. After a feared reception, Kambei plots a defense strategy and the samurai start training the farmers how to defend their lands and families ...
From: January 5, 2010 20:00 To: January 5, 2010 22:00
Location: Ballina Arts Centre
Ballina Film Club presents… Akira KurosawaMonth-long programme of events celebrating the life and work of one of world cinema’s greatest talents. Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998) was one of the 20th century most important filmmakers. In a career that spanned 50 years, Kurosawa directed 30 films, and is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in film history. In 1989, he was awarded the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement “for cinematic accomplishments that have inspired, delighted, enriched and entertained worldwide audiences and influenced filmmakers throughout the world”.
