Belfast Film Festival, April 14 to 23
THE programme for the 16th annual Belfast Film Festival was unveiled this week, featuring new international cinema and documentaries, critically acclaimed television, films and shorts from local film-makers plus plenty of post-screening discussions.
Guests attending this year's festival include renowned screenwriter and director Terence Davies, who will be honoured with the Belfast Film Festival's Outstanding Contribution to Cinema Award.
Davies will give a talk about his 40 year-long career, discussing films such as Distant Voices, Still Lives and The Long Day Closes which will be screened during the 10 day event.
"I’m extremely pleased that Terence Davies will attend the festival as The Long Day Closes is one of my favourite ever films," comments festival programmer Stephen Hackett, who manages to pick out a few highlights from this year's programme.
"Embrace the Serpent is a psychedelic, Colombian adventure about a mystical tribal shaman who leads two western explorers through his disappearing world," he reveals.
"Der Bunker is a dark, twisted and funny tale about home schooling in an isolated bunker mansion; Foreign Language Oscar-winner Son of Saul is a thrilling Auschwitz drama and Patrick Stewart is chilling as a white supremacist in Green Room (pictured)."
Elsewhere, Mads Mikkelsen (Hannibal, The Hunt) stars in Men and Chicken, a bawdy, oddball Danish black comedy about two outcast brothers living in the wilderness, while Virgin Mountain is a heartwarming Icelandic comedy about a 43-year-old man still living with his mother while fruitlessly looking for love.
:: See Belfastfilmfestival.org for full programme information
