Geoff Thompson, festival organiser; Credit: Ali Sahib

Festival Events Asbl has confirmed that the British & Irish Film Festival Luxembourg (BIFFL) 2023 Autumn Edition will take place between 13-28 September: while the core festival will take place from Monday 18 to Friday 22 September at the Cinémathèque, a number of other screenings are being organised the week before and the week after, at Ciné Utopia.

The festival will include no less than twelve feature-length films from a cross-section of genres and representing mainly independent cinema, from Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (in addition to the eleven screened in March). It will also include no less than three Luxembourg (co-)productions: Andy Bausch's Little Duke, Paul Thiltges Distribution (PTD)'s A Greyhound of a Girl and Cyrus Neshvad's Oscar-nominated short film The Red Suitcase.

The British & Irish Film Festival Luxembourg has been organised every year since 2010 and has evolved since those early days: initially it was organised as the British & Irish Film Season (BIFS), then this year a new non-profit organisation was established, Festival Events Asbl, to organise it and other events; in addition, this year it has split the festival into a Spring Edition and an Autumn edition.

According to festival organiser, Geoff Thompson, who talked with Chronicle.lu, he is pleased with the two-part festival format, stating: "Having the Spring Edition in March was great, the only question is why we didn't do it sooner... We formalised what we branded as 'St Patrick's Screenings' into the main festival, also incorporating films from the UK".

He added: "For the planning of our Autumn Edition, we were able to include our ever-popular Documentary Double Bill as well as incorporate a 'BIFFL Presents...' screening with Ciné Utopia. We have also been able to organise a seminar again, with two locally-based speakers from the expatriate community speaking on the topic 'Conflict and Trauma in British & Irish Cinema'. And we have a Shorts Evening within which we have no less than five award-winning short films addressing a range of important topics and of different lengths; we will then use this opportunity to launch our Young Filmmaker Competition to those interested in making their first short film, providing Top Tips to those interested."

The British & Irish Film Festival Luxembourg (BIFFL) 2023 Autumn Edition will open with the screening of The Miracle Club, a comedy drama set mainly in Ireland addressing healing, and will close with the English production The Outfit, a tense drama set in Chicago featuring a master tailor from England. All films will be receiving their Luxembourg premieres during the festival, apart from the recent Luxembourgish production Little Duke which is set around an Irish pub in Pfaffenthal: this will be one of two screenings held before the Official Opening on Monday 18 September, the other being the new film adaptation of an Agatha Christie story, A Haunting in Venice, which is up first on Wednesday 13 September in collaboration with Ciné Utopia as a "BIFFL Presents..." event.

Following the Official Closing on Friday 22 September, the festival is far from finished, with a special screening of the highly-acclaimed Mending the Line, a drama about war veterans set in Montana, US, with fly fishing a central theme – the British and Irish link here is the lead role in this US film is played by renowned Scottish actor Brian Cox. Either side of this special screening are the Seminar and the Shorts Evening which will feature the Oscar-winning An Irish Goodbye from Northern Ireland amongst the five short films.

Special Guests

The festival has garnered a reputation for attracting top actors, directors, producers, etc., and this 2023 Autumn Edition is no different. As Geoff Thompson recollected: "In March, we were delighted to have Lorcan Cranitch over for no less than three films who proved to be well appreciated by our audiences. Now, in September, we will have Special Guests over for four of our feature films an another three for our shorts programme." These include: Barry Ward (actor), Sunlight; Andy Bausch (director), Little Duke, screening on Sunday 17 September; Lydia Little (sister of Fergus O'Farrell), Breaking Out; Adrian Sibley (director), The Ghost of Richard Harris; Ciara Kelleher (co-director), Movers & Shapers; Cyrus Neshvad (director), The Red Suitcase; Kiyan Agadjani (director), George Barton.

Feature films

The main programme includes Ken Loach's latest film The Old Oak which is also set around a pub that has seen better days, this time in north-east England, with Syrian refugees also central to the storyline. This continues the theme of "Solidarity with Refugees" which the film festival started in 2022 following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Social issues also come to the fore in Sunlight, a drama set in Ireland addressing terminal illness and euthanasia, as well as addiction. Actor Barry Ward will be present to talk about preparing for playing a central role. The drama Ballwalter set in Northern Ireland sees Seána Kerslake and Patrick Kielty play two characters wanting to get their lives back on track following different "derailments". And The Eternal Daughter is a mystery/horror about confronting long-buried secrets within an eerie manor house.

The popular Documentary Double Bill includes an English-Irish production entitled The Ghost of Richard Harris which features his three sons and others who discuss the complex individual who was a successful singer and a published poet as well as an award-winning actor. On the same bill is Breaking Out, the story of the acclaimed singer Fergus O'Farrell who was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy at a young age but who is best known for his timeless song "Gold" which featured in the soundtrack to "Once", the Oscar-winning film and multi-Tony-award-winning musical.

For the screening of the IE-LU-EN-IT co-production A Greyhound of a Girl (its Avant-Premiere in Luxembourg), it will most likely be on 9 November, for which the festival has been allocated a number of tickets for the English-language screening.

Young Filmmakers Competition

This is open to students in 2nd and 3rd level education with winning entries to be screened at the BIFFL 2024 Spring Festival in March. It will be launched at the Shorts Evening which will feature five short films: in addition to the four mentioned above, we will also screen the 30-minute short film Nothing to Declare,  the charming true story of how two young boys from Dublin managed to travel unchallenged as for as New York in 1985, by bus, train, ship and plane...

Tickets

Tickets cost €9 or €10 per person per film, with ticketing again with Luxembourg-Ticket.lu, apart from A Haunting in Venice which is being screened in collaboration with Ciné Utopia as part of the "BIFFL Presents..." initiative (tickets for these screenings are on sale at Kinepolis.lu. The popular Season Special Ticket is available for purchase online at €35, with ticketing bundles also available (two for €15, for the Documentary Double Bill). Tickets may also be available at the venues prior to screenings, depending on availability.

For more detailed information on the programme, visit www.bifilmseason.lu.

PROGRAMME

  • Wednesday 13 September
    • 19:00 - Screening of A Haunting in Venice (BIFFL Presents...), 120 mins at Ciné Utopia
  • Sunday 17 September
    • 15:00 - Screening of Little Duke* (LU), 100 mins at Ciné Utopia
  • Monday 18 September
    • 19:00 - Opening with Speeches at the Cinémathèque
    • 19:00 - Screening of The Miracle Club (IE, EN), 91 mins at the Cinémathèque
  • Tuesday 19 September
    • 18:30 - Screening of Ballywalter (NI), 90 mins at the Cinémathèque
    • 20:30 - Screening of The Old Oak (EN, FR, BE), 113 mins at the Cinémathèque
  • Wednesday 20 September
    • 18:30 - Screening of Sunlight* (IE), 95 mins at the Cinémathèque
    • 20:30 - Screening of The Eternal Daughter (EN, IE, US), 96 mins at the Cinémathèque
  • Thursday 21 September
    • 18:30 - Screening of The Ghost of Richard Harris* (IE, EN), 106 mins at the Cinémathèque
    • 20:30 - Screening of Breaking Out* (IE), 84 mins at the Cinémathèque
  • Friday 22 September
    • 19:00 - Closing with Speeches / Awards at the Cinémathèque
    • 19:00 - Screening of The Outfit (EN) TBC, 105 mins at the Cinémathèque
  • Tuesday 26 September
    • 19:00 - Seminar on "Conflict & Trauma in B&I films from WW2", by Dr James Gallacher, with Ken O'Mahony speaking on "The Business of Irish- Luxembourg Film Production" at the Hotel Parc Belair
  • Wednesday 27 September
    • 19:30 - Screening of Mending the Line (US), 122 mins at Ciné Utopia
  • Thursday 28 September
    • 17:00 - Shorts Evening: Competition launch & Shorts screenings*, 97 mins at Ciné Utopia
  • Thursday 9 November (date tbc)
    • 19:00 - Screening of A Greyhound of a Girl  (IE, LU, EN, IT; Avant-Premiere with BIFFL) at Ciné Utopia

* Q&A scheduled