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Film Fri Feb 28 2014
The 15th Annual Chicago Irish Film Festival
The Chicago Irish Film Festival is recognized as the premiere festival "dedicated to celebrating contemporary Irish filmmaking"; this weeklong event, now in its 15th year, kicks off today and will be held at various locations throughout the city.
Special events, including the screening of Irish-centric film shorts, animation and feature-length films by award-winning Irish filmmakers, will take place during the festival. Tonight, the festival welcomes legendary Chicago photojournalist John G. Morris, who will be on hand for the Midwest premiere of Get the Picture, his book that features 50 years of photojournalism.
This year, festival highlights include:
How To Be Happy (Sat., March 1): An independent rom-com about a relationship advisor and his clients. The film's stars, Gemma-Leah Devereux and Brian Gleeson, along with producer Richard Bolger, will be in attendance.
The Irish Pub (Fri., March 7): Alex Fagen's look at the tradition of the Irish pub as one of the country's "oldest institutions."
Other films screening in the festival include Paul Kennedy's Made In Belfast, the story of a young Paris writer who confronts his past while at a funeral in Belfast and Mark O'Connor's Stalker, Ireland's first crowd-funded film.
The closing night's events will feature shorts that include Hannah Cohen's Holy Communion, an award-winning Irish/Jewish film by Shimmy Marcus, Eoin Duffy's The Missing Scarf, and Story Bud?, Jenny Keogh's "quirky guide to Irish slang."
The Chicago Irish Film Festival runs through Sat., March 8; for a complete festival program and schedule, as well as ticket information, visit www.chicagoirishfilmfestival.com.