Dublin Film Festival to open with Richard Ayoade's Submarine

The ninth Jameson Dublin International Film Festival will open with Richard Ayoade’s directorial debut Submarine on Feb 17.

The closing film will be François Ozon’s comedy Potiche, starring Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu.  

Ken Loach and son Jim Loach will both have the Irish premieres of their respective films Route Irish and Oranges And Sunshine.

Other Irish premieres include George Nolfi’s The Adjustment Bureau, Emilio Estevez’s The Way starring his father Martin Sheen, Jaume Collet-Serra’s Unknown, starring Liam Neeson and Aidan Quinn, which will have its world premiere in Berlin, Anton Checkov’s The Duel and Woody Allen’s You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.

There will be a special focus on emerging Romanian cinema, with screenings of The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu and comedy Hello, How Are You?, as well as a Latin Cinema Season which includes Diego Luna’s directorial debut Abel.

In the festival’s documentary section, films include Mark Cousins’ The First Movie and Werner Herzog’s 3D documentary Cave Of Forgotten Dreams, which will be followed by a post screening Q&A with the director via satellite.

This year, festival sponsor Jameson will also be launching its Cult Film Club, with a special interactive screening of The Usual Suspects, attended by Kevin Spacey.

The 2011 Irish Talent Spotlight will look at the work of Juanita Wilson, animator David O’Reilly and actor Aiden Gillen, whilst other events include a Screenwriting Panel discussion and a new screenwriting competition.

The festival programme was launched by actors Maura Tierney and Charlene McKenna in Dublin today (2J).

Festival director Grainne Humphreys said she was “incredibly honoured to unveil this years’ film festival programme – It’s a world class line up, with premieres of the best of international cinema, seasons of new work from Romania and Latin America, a fantastic line up of new Irish cinema, some classic films back on the big screen and a very special line up of guests.”

Festival CEO Joanne O’Hagan added  that the festival would be a “great foil to the constant political media coverage, and bucking the current trends both domestically and internationally we have a good news story to tell - Ireland is awash with film talent and the festival is where to be this February.”

The festival runs from Feb 17-27.