Fréwaka (Fréamhacha) + Panel DiscussionFréwaka (Fréamhacha) + Panel Discussion
Nerve Centre, 7-8 Magazine Street, Derry~Londonderry
Foyle Film Festival in collaboration with Zeppo Arts, supported by BFI Audience Projects Fund (awarding National Lottery funding) presents a screening event celebrating the success of Irish language cinema, both at home and internationally.
Foyle Film Festival in collaboration with Zeppo Arts, supported by BFI Audience Projects Fund (awarding National Lottery funding) presents
This event includes a special preview screening of Aislinn Clarke’s Irish language horror film Fréwaka, followed by a panel discussion on the development of Irish language cinema (including Kneecap and Fréwaka) from a production and distribution perspective. The panel will feature Patrick O'Neill (Wildcard Distribution) and Trevor Birney (Fine Point Films), producers of Kneecap, along with Aislinn Clarke, writer-director of Fréwaka.
Fréwaka
Haunted by a personal tragedy, home care worker, Shoo (Clare Monnelly), is sent to a remote village to care for an agoraphobic woman (Bríd Ní Neachtain) who fears the neighbours as much as she fears the Na Sídhe — sinister entities who she believes abducted her decades before. As the two develop a strangely deep connection, Shoo is consumed by the old woman’s paranoia, rituals, and superstitions, eventually confronting the horrors from her own past.
Aislinn Clarke | Ireland | 2024 | 103 mins | Subtitled
Meet Aislinn Clarke
Aislinn Clarke’s award-winning debut, The Devil's Doorway, was released internationally by IFC in 2019. Her second feature, Fréwaka, had its world premiere at the 77th edition of the Locarno Film Festival where it was warmly received by critics.
Currently on the festival circuit, it will be released internationally by Shudder/IFC in spring 2025 and in Ireland/UK by Wildcard. She has feature film projects in development with Paramount Studios, Studiocanal, and Wildcard. Aislinn was awarded the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Gold Fellowship in 2019/2020. She is also a lecturer at Queen's University Belfast.
Meet Patrick O'Neill
Patrick O'Neill is an award-winning producer who founded Wildcard Distribution in 2017, where he serves as Managing Director. Wildcard Distribution is one of Ireland’s leading film distribution companies, having released the Oscar®-nominated Wolfwalkers, in addition to box office successes Black 47, The Young Offenders, and Cardboard Gangsters.
Wildcard recently expanded into production, with their latest production, Kneecap, winning the Sundance Film Festival's Audience Award, as well as Best Irish Film, Best Irish Language Film, and the Audience Awards at this year’s Galway Film Fleadh.
Meet Trevor Birney
Trevor Birney is an Emmy-nominated producer, award-winning director, and the founder of Fine Point Films.
He recently produced his first scripted feature, Kneecap, directed by Rich Peppiatt. His slate also includes No Stone Unturned, Gaza, Elián for CNN Films, Netflix Originals Documentary Mercury 13, George Best: All By Himself, Bobby Sands: 66 Days, Let the Canary Sing and HBO’s Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God. He is also the founder of the television production company Below The Radar and the multi-award-winning investigative journalism website The Detail.
Foyle Film Festival In collaboration with...
Zeppo Arts, supported by BFI Audience Projects Fund (awarding National Lottery funding).
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