#IrishAbroad: Maudie and A Coat Made Dark head to Telluride

The Telluride Film Festival, one of America’s most prestigious and exclusive festivals, has announced its lineup for their 2016 festival, which opens tomorrow in Colorado.Aisling Walsh’s Irish-Canadian co-production Maudie and short film A Coat Made Dark, both funded by the Irish Film Board, have made the selection.

MaudieMaudie is based on the life of Nova Scotia folk artist, Maud Lewis, and is an unlikely romance in which the reclusive Everett Lewis (Ethan Hawke) hires a fragile yet determined woman named Maudie (Sally Hawkins) to be his housekeeper. Maudie, bright-eyed but hunched with crippled hands, yearns to be independent, to live away from her protective family. She also yearns, passionately, to create art. Unexpectedly, Everett finds himself falling in love. Maudie charts Everett’s efforts to protect himself from being hurt, Maudie’s deep and abiding love for this difficult man and her surprising rise to fame as a folk painter. The film is directed by Song for a Raggy Boy director Walsh and written by Sherry White (Crackie, Relative Happiness).The film shot in Canada with Guy Godfree as cinematographer. Post-production took place in Windmill Lane, with Stephen O’Connell as editor. Susan Mullen of Parallel Film Productions (Brooklyn, The Siege of Jadotville) produces, alongside Small Shack Productions, and Painted House Films. Financing comes from the Irish Film Board/Bord Scannán na hÉireann, Mongrel Media, Telefilm Canada, Newfoundland Film Development Corporation, Ontario Media Development Corporation, The Harold Greenberg Fund, and Corner Piece Capital.

A Coat Made DarkAnimated short A Coat Made Dark directed and written by Jack O’Shea has previously been selected for the world renowned Sundance Film Festival and the prestigious Clermont-Ferrand festival. In the short two burglars strike it rich after stealing a mysterious coat.  So begins a comic tale in which Midnight, an anthropomorphised dog and his human servant Peter struggle for power, courtesy of the coat. Produced by Damien Byrne for STILL Films LTD it features the voices of Hugh O’Connor, Declan Conlon and Antonia Campbell Hughes. The film which premiered at the Galway Film Fleadh last year was produced under the Frameworks short-film scheme, which is co-financed by Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board, RTÉ and the Arts Council.

This good news for the Irish Film Industry comes hours after seven Irish films were announced for the London Film Festival; A Dark Song, A Date for Mad Mary, Further Beyond, I Am Not A Serial Killer, The Secret Scripture, Without Name, and The Young Offenders. The Toronto International Film Festival will also premiere nine new Irish films next week.

The Telluride Film Festival is unique in that it does not announce the programme until the day before the Festival commences. Viva, Room and Mom & Me all had their world premiere at the festival last year, before going on to enjoy great international success.

The Telluride Film Festival open tomorrow and runs until Monday.

Full line-up:

“Arrival” (Denis Villeneuve)

“The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography” (Errol Morris)

“Bleed for This” (Ben Younger)

“Bright Lights” (Alexis Bloom and Fisher Stevens)

“California Typewriter” (Doug Nichol)

“Chasing Trane” (John Scheinfeld)

“The Eagle Huntress” (Otto Bell)

“The End of Eden” (Angus Macqueen)

“A Fanatic Heart — Bob Geldof on WB Yeats” (Gerry Hoban)

“Finding Oscar” (Ryan Suffern)

“Fire at Sea” (Gianfranco Rosi)

“Frantz” (François Ozon)

“Gentleman Rissient” (Benoît Jacquot, Guy Séligmann and Pascal Merigeau)

“Into the Inferno” (Werner Herzog)

“The Ivory Game” (Richard Ladkani and Kief Davidson)

“Jerry Lewis: The Man Behind the Clown” (Gregory Monro)

“La La Land” (Damien Chazelle)

“Lost in Paris” (Dominique Abel & Fiona Gordon)

“Manchester by the Sea” (Kenneth Lonergan)

“Maudie” (Aisling Walsh)

“Men: A Love Story” (Mimi Chakarova)

“Moonlight” (Barry Jenkins)

“My Journey Through French Cinema” (Bertrand Tavernier)

“Neruda” (Pablo Larraín)

“Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer” (Joseph Cedar)

“Sully” (Clint Eastwood)

“Things to Come” (Mia Hansen-Løve)

“Through the Wall” (Assaf Amir)

“Toni Erdmann” (Maren Ade)

“Una” (Benedict Andrews)

“Wakefield” (Robin Swicord)

Repertory titles:

“The Marseilles Trilogy: “Marius,” Fanny” and “César” (Marcel Pagnol)

“Variety” (Ewald André Dupont)

Guest Director selections:

“The Barefoot Contessa” (Joseph Mankiewicz)

“The Fire Within” (Louis Malle)

“I Was Nineteen” (Konrad Wolf)

“It Was the Month of May” (Marlen Khutsiev)

“Les Enfants Terribles” (Jean-Pierre Melville)

“Spies” (Fritz Lang)