05 Feb JIM SHERIDAN OPENS BELGRADE IRISH FESTIVAL IN MARCH
The Belgrade Irish Festival will be held for the twelfth time this year, from March 8 to 18, as St. Patrick’s Week in Belgrade. Over ten days, the Belgrade audience will have the opportunity to enjoy a selection of Irish films, award-winning theater performances, a photo exhibition, engage in discussions with directors, writers, and journalists from Ireland, and learn more about this country and its culture through socializing with the Irish living in Serbia.
This year, the Belgrade Irish Festival will be opened by Jim Sheridan, a renowned Irish screenwriter, producer, and director whose films have received 16 Oscar nominations, best known to the local audience for movies like ‘In the Name of the Father’ and ‘My Left Foot’ (both starring Daniel Day-Lewis).
On Friday, March 8, 2024, Jim Sheridan will open the 12th Belgrade Irish Festival at the Yugoslav Film Archive building.
An exclusive guest of the Belgrade Irish Festival is the theater troupe ‘Fishamble’ from Dublin. They will present the play ‘The King,’ which has earned the lead actor, Pat Kinevan, the prestigious Olivier Award. The play was part of the famous theater festival in Edinburgh (Edinburgh Fringe) last year and will be performed in America after Belgrade. Kinevan brings to life Luther, a loner named after Martin Luther King, who is preparing for his big performance as an impersonator of another king – Elvis Presley. The story addresses prejudices, the struggle for personal choice in life, and, in the broadest sense, raises questions about the mental health of contemporary individuals.
The play ‘The King’ will be performed twice at the Bitef Theater on March 14 and 15.
ABOUT OTHER PROGRAMS WITHIN THE FESTIVAL:
The festival opens with the ‘Irish Film Week,’ featuring a screening of Sheridan’s film ‘My Left Foot,’ which earned Daniel Day-Lewis an Oscar for the lead role. This year, BIF has the richest film program to date. Two thematic sections will showcase a total of 15 films celebrating the lives and achievements of Irish creators, including major film stars like Peter O’Toole and Richard Harris, musician and activist Sinead O’Connor, as well as contemporary pop icons like Panti Bliss, a popular Irish drag queen and LGBT rights advocate.
Special guests of BIF include director and writer Alan Gilsenan, former president of the Irish Film Institute. The audience will have the opportunity to see his film ‘Ghosts of Bagottonia,’ which explores the bohemian district of Dublin, Bagottonia, a gathering place for Irish artists, intellectuals, and radicals in expression in the mid-20th century, in contrast to the conservative environment of the time.
As a guest of BIF, Theo Dorgan, dubbed the ‘greatest living poet of Ireland,’ will come to Belgrade. He will read his poetry and engage in discussions with the audience at the Krokodil. In collaboration with Literature Ireland and Krokodil, one writer will be part of a literary residency, living and writing in Belgrade for a month.
BIF will present an exhibition by photographer Joseph Phillip Bevillard titled ‘Irish Travelers,’ portraying the life of Irish nomads, an ethnic minority known as Irish Travelers.
The BIF program, as always, includes parties in Irish pubs, collective viewing of the rugby match between England and Ireland, and socializing with the Irish who have long lived in Belgrade.