Two IFB funded films featured at the Telluride Film Festival in the USA over the weekend
The feature film ALBERT NOBBS had a special preview screening ahead of its Gala Presentation at the Toronto International Film Festival later this week and the short documentary COLLABORATION HORIZONTALE also screened at the festival.
The Telluride Film Festival has a phenomenal reputation as a very exclusive film festival as it doesn't announce its programme in advance. Telluride audiences have been the first in the world to laugh with JUNO, to observe THE LIVES OF OTHERS, to visit BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, to learn the secret of THE CRYING GAME and to experience BLUE VELVET.
Rodrigo Garcia's ALBERT NOBBS stars five-time Oscar nominee Glenn Close as a woman passing as a man in order to work and survive in 19th century Dublin. The film which shot on location around Dublin city centre earlier this year boasts an all-star line-up including Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland, Jane Eyre), Aaron Johnson (Kick-Ass, Nowhere Boy), Janet McTeer (Into the Storm, Tumbleweeds), Pauline Collins (You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, Shirley Valentine) as well as Irish actors Brenda Fricker (My Left Foot), Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Tudors) and Brendan Gleeson (The Guard).
COLLABORATION HORIZONTALE, directed by Ciaran Cassidy screened in the Calling Cards section which screens outstanding works by emerging filmmakers. The film examines an iconic image from war photographer Robert Capa taken during World War II with the film returning sixty five years on to discover the fate that befell a young girl, whose father was a German soldier.
The short documentary picked up a prize in the Best Documentary Short category at the recent Palm Springs International ShortFest. It was produced by Morgan Bushe for Fastnet Films as part of Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board's Reality Bites scheme.
The Telluride Film Festival took place 2 - 5th September.
More About ALBERT NOBBS
The film was produced by Alan Moloney for Parallel Films in Ireland along with Glenn Close, Bonnie Curtis and Julie Lynn with funding from the Irish Film Board. The US rights to the film were recently acquired by Liddell Entertainment and Roadside Attractions and a US release is likely before the end of the year.
Close won an Obie Award in 1982 for playing the Nobbs character Off-Broadway in Simone Benmussa's theatrical interpretation of the same George Moore novella that the film is based upon, "The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs," and she has been passionate to bring the character to the screen for almost 30 years. The New York Times raved of Close on stage, "The performance is transforming." Industry pundits already rank her among those likely to be vying for an Oscar this season.
Rodrigo Garcia (Mother And Child) directs ALBERT NOBBS from a script that Gabriella Prekop, Man Booker prize-winning novelist John Banville and Glenn Close wrote based on a story by Istvan Szabo, adapted from the Moore novella. ALBERT NOBBS marks Close's first screenplay credit, as well as her feature film producing debut. . Production companies are Trillium Productions, Mockingbird Pictures and Parallel Film Productions, with support from WestEnd Films and Chrysalis Films, as well as the participation of Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board/ the Irish Film Board.