Foyle Film Festival attracts top stars to Londonderry

Schools, students and young people will have the opportunity to enjoy a series of films, workshops, guest masterclasses and satellite events next month, as part of the Foyle Film Festival education programme for 2013.
By The Newsroom
Published 4th Nov 2013, 10:50 BST

This year, under the central theme of ‘legacy’, the curriculum focused programme will explore how historical events such as the Holocaust, the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s and Martin Luther King’s iconic, ‘I have a dream speech’, have been recorded and remembered.

Running from November 18 to November 29, special guests will include Academy Award® winning actor Jeremy Irons, who will present his new environmental documentary feature film, Trashed and take part in a post-screening discussion with students on the legacy of mankind’s destruction of the environment.

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Holocaust survivor Tomi Reichental makes a welcome return to the festival with Emmy Award® winning producer/director, Gerry Gregg to introduce and discuss their new documentary Close to Evil, which follows Tomi’s quest to find one of the SS guards who kept him captive. Tomi’s remarkable and harrowing story will prompt students to explore the impact of the genocide on the wider society. Emmanuel Jal, a former child soldier of Sudan’s brutal civil war and now a critically acclaimed hip-hop artist, will screen and discuss, War Child, which recounts the story of his life through his words and music and feature remarkable film footage dating back to his childhood.

The annual festival is a flagship project of the Nerve Centre. Bernie McLaughlin, Foyle Film Festival director, said: ‘This year’s extensive education programme was specially designed to encourage students to gain a deeper understanding of some of the darkest times in world history. Our guests will recount their experiences, lifting the events out of the history books and giving it a real-life context for students to explore and question. From the opening scenes of these films, students are transported everywhere from war-torn Sudan to the home of a former SS guard in Hamburg.’

Continuing the discussion on reporting and documenting conflict will be Mariane Pearl, author of A Mighty Heart, a work later transformed into a major Hollywood blockbuster starring Angelina Jolie.

at the free ‘Teaching Divided Histories’ conference on November 18 and 19.

The festival is funded by Northern Ireland Screen and Derry City Council.