Calvary

Directed by John Michael McDonagh

CALVARY is an upcoming black comedy drama film written and directed by John Michael McDonagh starring Brendan Gleeson, Chris O'Dowd, Kelly Reilly, Aidan Gillen and Isaach de Bankolé.

Brendan Gleeson plays a priest who is intent on making the world a better place, but he is continually shocked and saddened by the spiteful and confrontational inhabitants of his small country town.

One day, his life is threatened during confession, and the forces of darkness begin to close in around him.

As If I Am Not There

Directed by Juanita Wilson

AS IF I AM NOT THERE is a story of a young woman (Natasha Petrovic) from Sarajevo whose life is shattered the day a young soldier walks into her apartment and tells her to pack her things.

Rounded up with the other women from the village and imprisoned in a warehouse in a remote region of Bosnia, she quickly learns the rules of camp life. The day she is picked out to "entertain" the soldiers, the real nightmare begins. Stripped of everything she ever had and facing the constant threat of death, she struggles against all the hatred she sees around her. In a final act of courage or madness, she decides to make one last stand: to dare to be herself. And this simple act saves her life.

It's when she realizes that surviving means more than staying alive that she has to make a decision that will change her life forever.

AS IF I AM NOT THERE won Best Screenplay, Best Director and Best Film at the 2011 IFTAs.

www.asifiamnotthere.com

The Door

Directed by Juanita Wilson

THE DOOR is a universal symbol of life, of death, of entering the next life. It has many associations inherent in it, both positive and negative. It can mean an opportunity gained or an opportunity lost: as one door opens, another one closes...

The film opens with an absurd act: stealing a door. This raises a question in the viewer's mind, a question which is not answered until the final shot where the door's purpose is revealed. Then, what had seemed an absurd act turns into a simple statement of human dignity, of people making sense of loss through ritual.

THE DOOR reflects the fact that it is based on someone's testimony. Images are impressionistic, haunting, like fragments of memories which the viewer must piece together. Although the main character, Nikolai, gives us the facts, he himself is trying to make sense of them in his own mind.

The story moves forwards and backwards in time, revealing the events retrospectively as the viewer bears witness to the universal tragedy of Chernobyl through the eyes of one man. THE DOOR was nominated for an Academy Award® in 2010.

www.thedoorshortfilm.com

Ondine

Directed by Neil Jordan

ONDINE is the story of Syracuse (Colin Farrell), a simple fisherman who catches a beautiful and mysterious woman in his trawler's nets. The woman seems to be dead, but then she comes alive before Syracuse's eyes and he thinks he may be seeing things. However, with the help of his ailing, yet irrepressible daughter, Annie, he comes to believe that the fantastical might be possible and that the woman (Ondine, played by Alicja Bachleda) might be a myth come true. Ondine and Syracuse fall passionately in love, but just as we think the fairytale might go on forever, the real world intercedes. Then, after a terrible car crash and the return of a dark and violent figure from Ondine's past, hope eventually prevails and a new beginning is presented to Syracuse, Ondine and Annie.

www.ondinefilm.com

Dorothy Mills

A taut, atmospheric contemporary, psychological thriller about a disturbed young woman, Dorothy Mills (Jenn Murray), suspected of assaulting a young baby in a timeless rural village. She is visited by psychiatrist and outsider, Jane (Carice Van Houten), who discovers that Dorothy may not be responsible for her actions and might be possessed by a horrifying and malevolent force. As she helps Dorothy, Jane is confronted with her own past tragedies and starts to unravel another terrible secret hidden by some of the local villagers.

Shine of Rainbows

A SHINE OF RAINBOWS is a story about the transformational power of love, about finding acceptance, discovering ourselves, and realizing that rainbows are all around us- and within us too.

Maire O'Donnell (Connie Nielsen) is a loving woman as rare as a double rainbow. Joyful, warm and caring, she adopts a young orphan named Tomas and whisks him off to a new home on remote Corrie Island, off the coast of Ireland. Maire shares with Tomas the joys of her island home and introduces him to the whimsical local folklore, including the secret of the seals, and teaches him that everything you need is inside of you - if you really look.

ashineofrainbows.com

Inside I’m Dancing

Directed by Damien O'Donnell

When the kinetic Rory (James McEvoy) moves into his room in the Carrigmore Residential Home for the Disabled, his effect on the home is immediate. Most telling is his friendship with Michael, a young man with cerebral palsy and nearly unintelligible speech. Somehow, Rory understands Michael, and encourages him to experience life outside the confines of home. A joint production with Working Title Films, INSIDE I'M DANCING won the Edinburgh Film Festival Audience Award for Best Film in 2004.

Nora

Directed by Pat Murphy

In NORA, the eponymous heroine is the real-life Nora Barnacle (Susan Lynch), lover and later wife of writer James Joyce (Ewan McGregor). The film is firmly anchored in the intensity of the passion of the two, explicitly expressed in bed and out of bed, with James' unfounded jealously balanced by Nora's earthly rootedness. Their relationship is set against the backdrop of James' writer friends such as Oliver St John Gogarty ('The Bard is no snob', he remarks at Nora's job of chambermaid); another fuels his fear of Nora's unfaithfulness; and his devoted brother Stanislaus (Peter McDonald). The context is also the struggle Joyce had publishing his controversial writings (especially Dubliners) and the film ends in 1914 as Ulysses - the landmark modernist novel that is set on the day in 1904 when he met Nora - is begun.

Becoming Jane

Jane Austen lit up the world with her words, wit and wisdom. But her life, too, was stoked by passion and romance.

In BECOMING JANE Anne Hathaway is Jane Austen, a woman who believes in love but is destined, via her parents' wishes, to marry for money. But then Jane meets the dashing young Irishman, Tom Lefroy (James McAvoy). His intellect and arrogance ignite Jane's curiosity and her world spins head over heels! In BECOMING JANE a young lady, on the first rung of literary greatness, risks a romance that was to shape her life and her work.

H3

Directed by Les Blair

H3 is a universal story of endurance and courage set inside Europe's most secure prison, Long Kesh in Northern Ireland.

Seamus Scullion (Brendan Mackey) is the man chosen to select names of his fellow prisoners in the H3 prison block who are ultimately prepared to die for what they believe in.