Perhaps feeling left out of Boston’s Irish-steeped culture, Harvard has
brought a taste of it home to its conspicuously un-Irish campus with a
little help from Magners Irish Cider.
Though the tasty beverage itself is not appearing, Magners is
the main sponsor of this week’s seventh annual Irish Film Festival at
the Harvard Film Archive (HFA) and Brattle Theater. The festival may
not have quite the thrill of a Dublin pub crawl, but it promises its
fair share of exciting events—notably an appearance by Irish director
Terry George (“Hotel Rwanda”). With more than 30 features and short
documentaries, Magners celebrates the impressive and wide-ranging
talent of Irish filmmakers.
Jim Lane and Peter Flynn started the festival, which began as
an academic event featuring Irish films produced since the 1920s, while
at Amherst College. It included panels and guest speakers, but at the
end of the day, most of the people who attended were Irish-Americans
interested in seeing movies from their own cultural background. The
special program was so successful that despite what Flynn refers to as
“the whole nightmare that it was” they decided to make it an annual
event.
Now under Flynn’s direction, the festival has gained
financial stability due to sponsorship from Magners. Magners has also
allowed the festival to widen its demographic appeal to Bostonians in
general as well as its traditional audience of Irish and Irish-American
moviegoers, hoping that viewers will be drawn to the festival’s unique
cultural spin on cinema. Flynn credits Boston as particularly open to
cultural festivals, citing local events like the French Film Festival
and the Armenian Film Festival.
Despite having widened his target demographic, Flynn insists
that the festival is still “first and foremost catered to Irish and
Irish-American consumers” as a way to celebrate Irish culture and
accomplishments. He also lists more discerning viewers with a taste for
non-mainstream, art-house movies as a secondary audience.
The selection process for the festival begins by submitting a
call for entries, which is how Flynn and his team find 90 percent of
the movies shown. There are then three independent judges who spend
hours watching and deliberating over the movies to decide which films
will appear at the festival. The festival also offers four awards: Best
Feature, Best Documentary, Best Short Fiction/Animation, and the
Director’s Choice Award.
Some of Flynn’s favorite films from this season include “Song
for a Wagging Boy,” which he describes as an “emotional wringer,” as
well as “Adam and Paul,” which he calls “very funny but, in the end,
tragic.”
According to Flynn, a festival like this should be of great
interest to the Harvard community. He points out that “as our culture
becomes increasingly closed off to outside influences it becomes
increasingly important to learn how other people create art.”
Flynn asserts that, “they work very hard over there in
[Ireland] to make films,” with little money and resources, yet the
films they produce are exceptional and emotionally complex.
Regardless of the cultural context, such a lesson about
creating great art from very little is a unique gift for which Harvard
should thank the Flynn, the festival, and, indeed, Magners. That Irish
cider ain’t bad either.
—The Magners Irish Film Festival will run at the HFA and Brattle Theater from Nov. 17 through Nov. 21.
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