Boston's Irish film festival is free-for-all
Actor Aidan Quinn will be in town to receive the Excellence Award from the Boston Irish Film Festival Thursday evening at the Brattle Theatre, in an event that opens the four-day program.
Things kick off at 7 with a screening of "Song for a Raggy Boy," a 2003 movie with Quinn as a teacher in 1939 who rebels against the institutional violence he sees inflicted upon students. At 8:30, the festival will present a retrospective of Quinn's career and then open the floor to a conversation with the audience. At 10, everything shifts over to the Grafton Street restaurant, where the opening night reception is free to the public.
"Free to the public" is one of the great hallmarks of the Irish fest, now in its ninth year. On Friday, it hosts a free three-hour symposium on how to distribute short films internationally, and on Saturday and next Sunday there are free talks about Irish cinema by Tony Tracy, associate director of the Huston School of Film & Digital Media, in Galway. The festival's other parties - at Tommy Doyle's pub Friday and Jurys Hotel Boston Sunday - are free as well.
Unusual in the Boston festival world, the Irish fest names its winning films in advance. This year's awards are being given to David Gleeson's "The Front Line," a heist film set in contemporary Dublin about an immigrant blackmailed into a bank robbery (Best Feature Award; Friday at 7 p.m. at the Harvard Film Archive) and Margo Harkin's "The Hunger Strike," about Bobby Sands and other hunger strikers of 1981 (Best Documentary, Saturday at 4 p.m. at the HFA, Harkin attending).
Other awards are going to P.J. Dillon's "Deep Breaths," a 15-minute short about a man who follows a woman he loves onto a train and "discovers a shocking truth" (Best Short Fiction/Animation, playing with "The Front Line" Friday at 7 p.m., Dillon attending), and Dave McLaughlin's Boston-filmed "On Broadway," starring Joey McIntyre as a struggling playwright (Director's Choice, Saturday at 7 p.m. at the HFA, McLaughlin attending).
The complete festival schedule and some film trailers are online at irishfilmfestival.com.
CHRISTMAS TREE TOPPED WITH A STAR OF DAVID: The Boston Jewish Film Festival continues through next Sunday, and among the highlights this week is Kate Feiffer's "Matzo and Mistletoe," which looks at whether being a secular Jew means being less Jewish or not at all Jewish.
Feiffer says she grew up without religion, noting in the film that "it was like [my parents] simply forgot to mention it." Today, her own child celebrates Christmas and gets visits from Santa, and Feiffer has finally figured out that there isn't a fish called gefilte. "I know that I'm Jewish, but I don't know what keeps me Jewish," she says.
She tries to track down answers through posing the question to other folks. Newsman Mike Wallace, who grew up as Myron Wallace in Brookline, explains, somewhat testily, that while he celebrates Christmas, he says his prayers in Hebrew every night. On the other hand, the director's father, Jules Feiffer, the cartoonist, playwright, and screenwriter, is vehement about not playing at the traditions he walked away from.
"Matzo and Mistletoe" gets its Boston premiere on Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. Feiffer will attend a post-film discussion along with Robert Brustein, the founding director of the American Repertory Theatre, and Doreen Beinart, former director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Film Series at Harvard's Kennedy School.
Also playing the festival this week is the world premiere of "The Powder & the Glory," a look at entrepreneurial rivals Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden. As festival materials note, "That Madame Rubinstein chose to keep her obviously Jewish name makes her triumph all the more remarkable." A sneak peek of film clips played last spring at a BJFF fund-raiser, but this is the finished version and includes narration by Jane Alexander. Directors Ann Carol Grossman and Arnie Reisman will be at both screenings: today at 4:15 p.m. (sold out - standby line only), and Wednesday at 2 p.m.
Up-to-date festival details are at bjff.org, or call 617-244-9899.
BLACKLIST REVISITED: Halloween was last week, but tomorrow from noon to 9 p.m., Emerson College will revisit the movie industry's own witch trials with a symposium on the Hollywood blacklist: the list of names released in 1947 that dried up the careers of screenwriters, actors, directors, and musicians who were members of the Communist Party or simply alleged to have sympathy for it, and the blacklist's legacy today.
The program includes a panel discussion on "The Blacklist and the Patriot Act" from noon to 2 p.m., featuring filmmaker Christopher Trumbo, whose father, Dalton Trumbo, was a screenwriter on the list. A second panel, from 2 to 4 p.m., will explore "Free Speech Across the Disciplines." The day will close with a reading from 7 to 9 p.m. of the play "The Waldorf Conference," which speculates about the conversations that led to the list. Playwrights Nat Segaloff, Daniel M. Kimmel, and Reisman will host a Q&A afterward.
Information is online at emerson.edu, or call 617-824-8369
SCREENINGS OF NOTE: The 14th annual Boston Festival of Films from Iran opens Friday with "Persian Carpet," a 15-episode collection of short films all on the topic of Persian rugs. The shorts are by some of the best Iranian filmmakers working, including Jafar Panahi, Abbas Kiarostami, Rakhshan Bani Etemad, and Majid Majidi. On Nov. 16, Majidi will be at the Museum of Fine Arts to receive the annual ILEX Foundation Award for Excellence in Iranian Cinema. All shows are at the MFA, with the festival continuing through Nov. 24 (617-267-9300 and mfa.org/film).
Johnnie To's Hong Kong action movie "Exiled,"another of his shoot-em-ups in the tradition of Sam Peckinpah and John Woo, is at the Brattle Theatre today through Thursday (617 876-6837 and brattlefilm.org).
The Somewhat North of Boston Film Festival takes place Friday, Saturday, and next Sunday in downtown Concord, N.H. "Gordon Manning: The Sawyer of Sutton Mills," about a New Hampshire lumberer who still uses a 19th-century mill, plays Saturday at 8:15 p.m., and "High & Outside," a documentary about one-time Red Sox pitcher Bill "Spaceman" Lee, plays Saturday at 6:15 p.m. (603-224-8382 and snobfilm festival.org)
And the Belmont World Film's Family Festival takes place next weekend and highlights animated children's books, including "Knuffle Bunny," on Saturday and the best of the Belmont Youth Video Festival on Sunday (617-484-3980 and belmontworldfilm.org).
Leslie Brokaw can be reached at lbrokaw@globe.com. 