Still Voices to showcase the best of Longford talent

The Festival in partnership with Creative Ireland Longford and Backstage Theatre present a special screening of two films with a strong Longford theme: The Dance and Lakelands.

This year's festival takes place from today (Wednesday, November 9) through to next Sunday (November 13). The Still Voices Film Festival is a community-focused, international film festival based in Ballymahon, Longford.

It started out as a showcase for local film-making talent in 2014 and has grown into a festival recognised both nationally and internationally.

The festival organisers Ronan O'Toole told the Leader about the background to the festival: “We deliver new, exciting and world-class cinema for the local community and wider Midlands region.

"Through our core programme, the Short Film Competition, we showcase a variety of films, including fiction, non-fiction, animation, student, Irish language and experimental.”

Ronan says the programme has a strong Longford influence: “It's amazing for us as a festival. The whole purpose of Still Voices is to give local audiences access to great cinema, and indeed great art. To be able to exhibit and promote work by local filmmakers is even more important and satisfying for us.”

From humble origins the festival has grown: “It started out in 2014 as a one night event in Ballymahon just to showcase work by local film makers for local audiences. Here we are eight years later with a five day festival. The fact that the highlight of the festival this year is a local, award winning feature film is incredible,” Ronan tells.

“It's been an unbelievable journey for the festival. We have developed our name at a national and international level over the course of the last eight years. That was done on the strength of our programming. Cinema is not the main art of our county, we are better known for our literature and theatre, but cinema is really coming to the fore. The development of Hammerlake Studios in Mullingar, Europe's largest film studio, makes this a very exciting time to be involved in film making in the Midlands.”

This year's Still Voices Film Festival presents an exciting programme. The Dance will be screened in Backstage Theatre on November 11, followed by a Q&A with Pat Collins and Michael Keegan-Dolan.

The film captures the curtain rise of Michael Keegan-Dolan's Mám. Giving a tantalising glimpse of the opening night of the show's 2019 Dublin Theatre Festival run.

Ronan says there are other local delights in the programme: “This year we have work from Adrian Duncan Jr, from Ballymahon. We also have a great selection of films in our Midlands Shorts. That will include three films from Longford. We also have Longford film makers in our student category.”

Ronan is particularly excited about another local gem: “The real big one this year is Lakelands by Robert and Patrick from Granard. It won the best Irish film at the Galway film fleadh. This is a homecoming screening for the film.”

Lakelands is filmed on location in Granard, Longford and surrounding areas such as Gowna. It stars Éanna Hardwicke (Normal People, Vivarium), Danielle Galligan (Netflix’s Shadow and Bone), Lorcan Cranitch (Bloodlands, The Dig), Dafhyd Flynn (Michael Inside), Dara Devaney (Arracht), and Gary Lydon (Calvary).

It tells the story of a young Gaelic footballer, Cian, who struggles to come to terms with a career-ending injury sustained on a night out. Lakelands follows him as he undertakes a search for his own identity in a small town in the Midlands, where Gaelic football is a religion and identity is defined by what you can do on the pitch.

Lakelands will be screened on November 12 at 8pm, followed by a Q&A with the directors Robert Higgins and Patrick McGivney of Harp Media. Both films will be shown in Backstage theatre.

Tickets costing €10 went on sale last Monday October 10.