KFF Films Make Splash in North America

Winners at the Kerry Film Festival 2008 Awards Ceremony

The Kerry Film Festival, which is celebrating ten years of bringing film to the people of Kerry, has partnered with a number of films festivals across the globe in a move to promote Irish Shorts and to advocate for screenings of films that have played at KFF.

"We've very proud of the films we screen and absolutely believe that they should have an audience all around the world," said Jason O' Mahony, Director of the Kerry Film Festival. "To that end we've partnered with a number of festivals in Spain, Italy, Canada and America to promote the shorts which screen in our Festival."

The fruits of that labour were seen in April when Declan Cassidy's short film WHATEVER TURNS YOU ON, winner of the Best Irish Short Film at KFF 2008, was selected to play in the Chicago Irish Film Festival. It subsequently went on to win an honourable mention in Chicago.

"WHATEVER TURNS YOU ON is a wonderful little film and everyone here was blown away by it, we were thrilled to be able to recommend such a scorching hot short to Chicago and delighted that it won an honourable mention from the audience," added O' Mahony. "Declan's film has a heart of gold and manages in a few short minutes what many feature-length films fail to do in as many hours!"

Next up is the Nickel Film Festival, based in Newfoundland in Canada. Kerry Film Festival recommended a number of short films to the Festival and five shorts from KFF 2008 will play in the festival which takes place from Tuesday, June 23rd to Saturday, June 27th.

Declan Cassidy's film will again feature and will be joined by Irish Shorts: Michael Lavelle's OUT OF THE BLUE; Mark Noonan's QUESTIONS and the KFF 2008 Winning Short Brian Durnin's OF BEST INTENTIONS. Also screening in Canada is German Short OUR WONDERFUL NATURE, winner of Best Animated Short at KFF 2008.

"It's such a joy to watch the audience reaction to those shorts, I really wish I was able to take the trip to Canada," laughed O' Mahony.

Samhlaiocht is supported through grant aid from The Arts Council, Kerry County Council, Failte Ireland and by the generous corporate sponsorship of Kerry Group.

For more information on Samhlaiocht please log on to www.samhlaiocht.com

For more information on the Nickel Film Festival please log onto www.nickelfestival.com