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Berlinale Co-Production Market matches 36 new feature film projects with international co-production partners .

The 13th edition of the Berlinale Co-Production Market (Feb 14-16) has unveiled the 36 feature film projects from 29 different countries that will look to forge international co-production and financing partnerships.

Among the directors of the selected projects are Ciro Guerra, whose Embrace of the Serpent was presented as a project at a past edition of the market and is nominated for this year’s Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards.

Also included Jasmila Zbanic, winner of the Golden Bear in 2006; Irish director Mark Noonan, who presented his debut film You’re Ugly Too last year at the Berlinale in the Generation Kplus programme and is currently working on his second feature film; as well as a host of other acclaimed directors such as Diego Lerman, Oliver Schmitz, Brandon Cronenberg and Alvaro Brechner.

The latest feature from Roar Uthang, who directed...

One of the movies I've been looking forward to since first hearing about it last year is Ivan Kavanagh's The Canal. The psychological thriller stars Rupert Evans as David, a cinema archivist who lives with his wife and their five year old son Billy.

But all is not well in David and Alice's life and he begins to suspect that his wife might be cheating. That suspicion arises at the same time that through his work, he discovers that their home is the site of a grizzly serious of murders by a man who killed his wife for being unfaithful and then proceeded to drown his children in a nearby canal. David stars to believe that the presence of this killer is haunting his family.

It sounds like a fairly standard haunting story but I really like Kavanagh's The Fading Light and exp [Continued ...]...

To celebrate their 13th anniversary this year, the Melbourne Underground Film Festival is going green!

No, they’re not out to save the kookaburra or anything. Instead, they’re hosting a special tribute to the New Irish Low Budget Cinema, featuring two films by acclaimed filmmaker Ivan Kavanagh, plus work by Colin Downey, Gary Kenneally and Gerard Lough.

Muff will host a repeat screening of Kavanagh’s celebrated thriller Tin Can Man — it previously screened at Muff in 2008 — as well as his latest film, The Fading Light. The three other Irish films screening all fall into the horror/thriller genres, from Downey’s The Looking Glass to Kenneally’s Stephen King adaptation The Boogeyman and Lough’s trilogy-ending The Shaken 3. And, in addition, the entire fest kicks off with the opening night Irish thriller Charlie Casanova by Terry McMahon.

But don’t think Muff is all Irish all the time this year,...

Principal Photography has begun on Emu Productions fantasy drama 'The Shadows'. The feature began filming last week and will continue until September 5th. 'The Shadows' will film around Dublin and Meath, with the production based in Navan. Written and directed by Colin Downey, 'The Shadows' is inspired by George MacDonald's fairytale of the same name. New cast confirmed in the feature are Eddie Weber (The Business), Sam Homan (Ros na Run), Irene Wright (Sugar Stick) and Gráinne McHale. They join the confirmed stars Michael Parle (Our Wonderful Home), Emma Eliza Regan (The Fading Light), Natalie Kostrzewa (The Looking Glass) and Lorcan Melia (Camelot)...

The Irish Film Institute will host exclusive screenings of Irish writer, director and editor Ivan Kavanagh's award-winning 'The Fading Light' from March 12th to 18th. The screenings will be run as part of the Institute's ongoing commitment to new Irish film. The film walked away with honours for both Best Irish Film and Best Actor (for Patrick O'Donnell) from the 2010 Jameson Dublin International Film Festival's. A study of a family in crisis, Ivan Kavanagh's fifth feature, produced by AnneMarie Naughton (Tara Road), is an intense affair where two estranged daughters return home to a dying mother and become reacquainted with a house of difficult memories. Their brother, played by Patrick O'Donnell is disabled and dependent, he faces an uncertain future and his predicament tests the sisters' affection and empathy. The turmoil created by the approach of death intensifies the relationships, and an already fragmented family slides towards disintegration.

Ken Wardop's documentary His & Hers came away with the Audience Award at the 2010 Jameson Dublin International Film Festival, which ended on Sunday 28th February. The film also won best documentary and cinematographer Kate McCullough was awarded the festival's inaugural Michael Dwyer Discovery honour. Best Irish Film went to 'The Fading Light' from Ivan Kavanagh (Our Wonderful Home), and Best Actor (Male) went to Patrick O'Donnell (Tin Can Man), for his role as a special needs adult in the same film. The Ifi has since announced an exclusive release of 'The Fading Light', from March 12th to 18th as part of its commitment to screen new Irish films.