JULY 2024 AT THE IFI

June 27th, 2024: This July, the Irish Film Institute (IFI) presents a selection of exciting international and Irish new releases, including The Sparrow, Crossing, and I Saw The TV Glow. From Saturday 6th to Wednesday 31st, the IFI is delighted to screen part one of our newest season: American Independents – a retrospective looking at the works of influential American independent filmmakers of the ’90s, with the second part of the season screening throughout August.

Opening on Friday 5th is Orlando, My Political Biography, a bold and joyous documentary celebrating trans identity, told through the lens of Virginia Woolf’s iconic 1928 novel Orlando; Francis Ford Coppola’s classic The Conversation, re-released in a new stunning 4K restoration to mark the film’s 50th anniversary; and The Sparrow, an Irish psychological drama starring Éanna Hardwicke and newcomer Ollie West. There will be a preview screening of The Sparrow on Thursday 4th, followed by a Q&A with Éanna Hardwicke, Ollie West, writer/director Michael Kinirons, and producer Alicia Ní Ghráinne, hosted by writer Belinda McKeon. Following the release of Orlando, My Political Biography, the IFI will present a screening on Sunday 28th of Sally Potter’s Orlando, an adaptation of Woolf’s novel starring Tilda Swinton as the eponymous Orlando.

From Friday 12th, quietly beautiful nature documentary Heart of an Oak; South Korean horror Sleep, a feature debut from director, and previous Bong Joon-ho collaborator, Jason Yu; and Daniela Volker’s The Commandant’s Shadow, a documentary following the son of Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Höss as he faces his father’s legacy for the first time, open in IFI Cinemas. Crossing, from director Levan Akin (And Then We Danced), and award-winning, semi-autobiographical debut feature Shayda open in-cinema from Friday 19th. There will be a preview screening of Crossing on Thursday 18th, with an introduction by Small Trans Film Club’s James Hudson.

Opening at the IFI from Friday 26th is Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s (Winter Sleep; The Wild Pear Tree) character study About Dry Grasses; Jane Schoenbrun’s highly-anticipated I Saw The TV Glow; and Irish director Cara Holmes’s Reel Arts-funded Notes from Sheepland. The opening night screening of Notes from Sheepland on Friday 26th will be followed by a Q&A with director Cara Holmes and documentary subject Orla Barry.

Starting Saturday, July 6th and continuing into August, the IFI is excited to screen American Independents, a season presenting a snapshot of a remarkably fertile time for American independent cinema, which saw a cohort of directors emerging to rival the Film Brats of the 1970s, both to our audiences in-cinema in our Eustace Street venue, and online across the Republic of Ireland on our streaming platform IFI@Home.

Titles screening in-cinema in July as part of the American Independents season include Hal Hartley’s Trust; Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan; Richard Linklater’s Slacker; John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood; Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust; Carl Franklin’s One False Move; Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs; Robert Rodriguez’s El Mariachi; Kevin Smith’s Clerks; Gregg Araki’s The Doom Generation; Rose Troche’s Go Fish; and Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman. Tickets for July titles are now available on the IFI website.

Films available online on IFI@Home from July 1st as part of the season include Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez’s The Blair Witch Project; Gus Van Sant’s Good Will Hunting; Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn; Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction; Wayne Wang’s Smoke; Four Rooms from directors Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez, and Quentin Tarantino; and Wayne Wang and Paul Auster’s Blue in the Face. Further titles for August for IFI Cinemas and IFI@Home to be announced shortly.

From Saturday, June 29th to Saturday, July 27th, the IFI presents the first iteration of The Saturday Serial – a resurrection of the classic serials of early cinema with weekly franchise screenings, beginning with the peerless Indiana Jones saga, every Saturday at 11.00. Tickets for each screening are €8.00, with a 5 for €30.00 bundle available at IFI Box Office.

On Friday 5th, we’re delighted to welcome actor, producer, and director Griffin Dunne to the IFI for an In Conversation event, hosted by the Irish Times’s Donald Clarke, where Griffin will share memories of his extraordinary career and discuss his memoir, The Friday Afternoon Club. Tickets cost €25.00, and include a signed copy of The Friday Afternoon Club. This talk will be followed by a separate screening of Martin Scorsese’s After Hours, introduced by Griffin Dunne.

This month’s Archive at Lunchtime programme, British & Irish, presents two programmes of promotional films, screening for free at lunchtime daily throughout July. On Monday 8th, the IFI Irish Focus strand once again partners with the Irish Modern Dance Theatre to present a programme of new short Irish dance films, screening as part of the Dancer from the Dance Festival.

Screening on Tuesday 9th is Mike Cheslik’s energetic black-and-white love letter to comedies of the silent era, Hundreds of Beavers, which follows the adventures of Jean Kayak, a hapless frontier applejack brewer, who finds himself locked in a battle of wits with an overwhelming number of adversarial beavers. July’s The Bigger Picture offering will be Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho, introduced by broadcaster and designer Brendan Courtney, screening on Wednesday 10th.

The EAFFI Discoveries strand returns this month with a screening on The Breaking Ice, an introspective journey of Gen Z youth from award-winning Singaporean writer-director-producer, Anthony Chen, on Tuesday 16th, followed by a Q&A with Chen. On Thursday 18th, the IFI presents a special screening of National Theatre Live’s provocative comedy Present Laughter, starring renowned Irish actor Andrew Scott. Screening on Friday 19th, Saturday 20th, and Wednesday 24th is new feature documentary blur: To The End, which captures the extraordinary and emotional return of Blur, during the year in which they made a surprise return with their first record in 8 years, the critically-acclaimed No. 1 album The Ballad of Darren.

The Mystery Matinee returns on Sunday 21st, offering audiences the chance to see a surprise film, new or old, for only €6.20. This month, Wild Strawberries, the monthly film club for over 55s, presents Driving Madeleine on Friday 26th and Wednesday 31st. Our IFI Family screening for July will be Minuscule: Valley of the Lost Ants, a fun and unique animation, where a spirited ladybird gets caught up in a forest war between two tribes of ants, screening on Sunday 28th.

The IFI Youth Panel, a youth-led programming group formed from IFI 22 & Under cardholders, will present a screening of Sean Baker’s award-winning The Florida Project on Monday 29th. The From The Vaults strand this month presents Valerio Jalongo’s Spaghetti Slow on 35mm, a amiable coming-of-age romance set in Dublin in the summer of 1996, and screening on Tuesday 30th.

Tickets for new releases and special events are on sale from the IFI Box Office on (01) 6793477 and from www.ifi.ie, as per the IFI’s Weekly Schedule. Online rentals from IFI@Home are available at www.ifihome.ie. For further information and high-res images, please contact Casey Hynes (chynes@irishfilm.ie) at the IFI Press Office.

SCHEDULE

SATURDAY, JUNE 29TH
The Saturday Serial: Raiders of the Lost Ark

THURSDAY 4TH
Preview: The Sparrow + Q&A

FRIDAY 5TH
Griffin Dunne In Conversation with Donald Clarke
After Hours + introduction

FROM FRIDAY 5TH
Orlando, My Political Biography
The Conversation 50th Anniversary
The Sparrow

SATURDAY 6TH
The Saturday Serial: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
American Independents: Trust

SUNDAY 7TH
American Independents: Metropolitan

MONDAY 8TH
Irish Focus: Dancer from the Dance

TUESDAY 9TH
Hundreds of Beavers

WEDNESDAY 10TH
The Bigger Picture: My Own Private Idaho

THURSDAY 11TH
American Independents: Slacker

FROM FRIDAY 12TH
Heart of an Oak
Sleep
The Commandant’s Shadow