The season will be launched by Daniel Day-Lewis at this gala screening with guests Brenda Fricker, Hugh O’Conor and Jim Sheridan.

His first film as director launched Jim Sheridan’s international career and launched Irish cinema onto the world stage. Anyone who remembers Ireland’s dismal 1980s, when we wondered if we could do anything right, will remember the national celebrations that followed My Left Foot’s Academy Award victories (for Daniel Day-Lewis as Christy Brown and Brenda Fricker as Mrs Brown). Not only that, My Left Foot received a further three Academy Award nominations; it went on to become one of the most successful independent films in America in 1990. The film also featured a remarkable performance by Hugh O’Conor as young Christie. It was an extraordinary achievement for a small production drawn from the autobiographical writings of a young inner-city Dubliner, Christy Brown, who had battled against cerebral palsy to become an accomplished artist. Sheridan is happy to admit that, with only a six-week course in filmmaking to his name, he learnt on the job. The apprentice became master very quickly.