“Perfect your swan impression,” is the adage of Dublin International Film Festival (DIFF) executive festival director Grainne Humphreys ahead of the 2025 event, which kicks off tomorrow (February 20) with Uberto Pasolini’s The Return, and star Ralph Fiennes in attendance.
World premieres include Jonathan Kent’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, starring Jessica Lange and Ed Harris. The industry programme features a masterclass with Swiss director Alexandre O. Philippe and a session with producer Melanie Miller, an Oscar and Bafta winner for 2023 documentary Navalny.
Humphreys sat down with Screen to talk programme highlights – including a 25th anniversary tribute event for US TV series Gilmore Girls – as well as the importance of supporting non-English-language titles and managing the Berlinale overlap.
How are you feeling on the eve of the festival?
What I love about our group [the festival team] this year is that I feel like we’re ahead, that’s a lovely place to be. Irish production has ramped up in the last couple of years, which is great for content, but it’s not so great when you’re trying to recruit people for a festival job that is only four to five months in length. We always drew from production, hiring first ADs [assistant directors] to work with guests or look after talent for example. But then they all got real jobs. The talent pool has changed.
What are your programme highlights?
The Irish have always loved their own, so a lot of the new Irish work is very popular, and close to sold out. The Avolon world cinema programme is strong, which is a way of giving visibility to first, second and third-time directors. It’s got Sister Midnight, On Falling and Peacock. World cinema has always been important for DIFF, because the festival was set up [in 2003] to address the limited exhibition in Ireland of foreign-language films, in a way that is still there.
Some of them have distribution, some of them don’t. We have Maldoror, which I saw at Venice – it’s fab. This is one of those films, you have a smile while you’re introducing it, you know audiences are going to see something quite special. In olden days, that would have been getting a release. It feels we’ve come back to that circle of bringing films in, knowing this is the only time they’ll be getting in front of a big projector.
Why did you decide to introduce a world cinema award this year?
We looked back after last year’s festival and felt some films just didn’t get the coverage or space they deserved.
Why is Morocco the country focus?
There is a Moroccan-Ireland co-production, [TV series] The Boy That Never Was, produced by Subotica out of Ireland. They had an amazing experience. We found out there were a lot of people from the Irish film community working in Morocco, and vice versa. It was about visibility on a partnership that we were unaware of.
DIFF starts as the Berlinale winds down. To try and expand DIFF’s international industry reach, could dates shift?
Dates is one of the things we must look at – it would also mean my colleagues and I would get Christmas back, which would be nice. But we’re always aware of thinking about Edinburgh when it shifted dates [from August to June in 2008, before shifting back to August in 2022], and how difficult it is to shift dates successfully. There’s a natural place and order, and when you jump out of it, there are good and bad things.
You also work closely with Glasgow Film Festival, sharing some programming, guests and costs, which starts on February 26. Will the collaboration change with GFF director Allison Gardner leaving this year?
On a personal level, she’s an amazing dynamo. I’ve learned so much. There are lots of similarities between our two festivals, on programming and audience-wise. That’s something we should keep and try to build and develop.
How did you settle on a 25th-anniversary celebration for Gilmore Girls? Will any cast be coming out?
No cast is planned now, [but] I knew [star] Lauren Graham has an interest in Ireland. Warner Bros came to us and said, “We’ve got an anniversary, would you be interested?” And I thought, “Why can’t we have fun?”
Let’s be honest – it’s going to be a completely different audience than coming in to see the silent or Moroccan cinema. And I thought, if I can get them to DIFF for Gilmore Girls, it’ll be two small steps to get them coming back. I also want to throw out the idea that if it’s long, slow, depressing and in a foreign language, it’s somewhat more important than 45 minutes of joy.
You’ve introduced a sustainability gala, screening Seaweed Stories and Our Blue World, this year – which is sponsored by car manufacturer Volvo. How did that match come about?
Three years ago, we stepped away from a title sponsor [Virgin Media, while Arts Council remains the core funder], and looked around at several different partners. Volvo has been our partner in relation to transport. The sustainability piece came from our board, and industry-wide, society-wide interest in bringing visibility to sustainability.
Volvo has a very high-profile sustainability strategy and ethos. Our [festival] cars are electric. They said they wanted to be in the programme, and it seemed like a match. It’s an opportunity to do that debate piece.
What else is changing?
We have our new Complex, the hub space, for our industry and public events. We can do multiple things that we couldn’t do if we were constantly trying to work out where [to do it]. It’s now in year two, and we’re looking to see how we can maximise it. It’s like the mad things you can do if you suddenly find you have a spare room in your house and think about turning it into a study, or renting it out, or throwing a party.
DIFF runs February 20-March 2.
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