The first Toronto Irish Film Festival is a modest affair.
Just two features and two Oscar-nominated animated shorts, playing over a Sunday afternoon at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. It’s small, but at this point in Toronto’s festival cycle, with Cinefranco and Images and Hot Docs and Inside Out looming on the cultural horizon, small is appreciated.
So this is the schedule: Tomm Moore and Nora Twomey’s animated fantasy The Secret Of Kells screens at 12:30 pm, accompanied by 2009’s Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty at 3:30 pm, it’s Ken Wardrop’s narrative documentary His & Hers, preceded by 2001’s Give Up Your Aul Sins. After that, the festival throws itself a party at Grace O’Malley’s, on Duncan St.
These movies aren’t new, exactly The Secret Of Kells was a dark-horse Oscar nominee that slid rather unceremoniously to DVD last summer, and His & Hers played at the 2010 Hot Docs festival. (I wasn’t a fan.) Neither picture managed a proper theatrical run, which means most people never even heard of them.
This is an aspect of film festivals that most programmers overlook in the rush to book the newest and hottest titles. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a festival that looks backward, especially if it’s a small festival just getting its start. And anything that rescues The Secret Of Kells from small-screen obscurity is worth encouraging that’s one gorgeous movie, with beautifully realized characters and an epic storytelling sensibility. They’re calling for flurries on Sunday this would be an excellent diversion.
