Long legacy of Leeside cinema
Cork city’s rich cinematic heritage will be celebrated with a series of special events next week as part of the 70th Cork International Film Festival.
The three special events are Legacy Day on 12 November, Cork Lens: IFI Cork on Camera on 16 November, and the Cork Film Trail which takes place throughout the festival (6-16 November).
Legacy Day will take place in UCC’s Kane Building on 12 November from 10am to 6pm. The series of discussions invites audiences to reflect on the moving image as both cultural treasure and fragile historical record.
The day opens with restored footage of the 1965 Cork International Film Festival (CIFF), introduced by Ciara Chambers (UCC) and Don O’Mahony (CIFF), followed by Archiving the Alternative, a discussion on pioneering women filmmakers, Cork cine-enthusiasts, and community-driven clergy filmmakers.
After lunch, Preserving Community Archives, chaired by Kasandra O’Connell, highlights local initiatives including The Ballymun Community Films Project and Cork Community Media Hub, with contributions from Andrew Keogh, Emma Bowell, and Niall Anderson. The afternoon continues with a screening of Aikaterini Gegisian’s ‘Third Person’, a collage essay film composed from 200 postwar American newsreels, followed by a Q&A.
Legacy Day concludes with In the Opinion of the Censor, a screening and discussion with producers David Power and John Kelleher, and Ciarán Kissane of the Irish Film Classification Office. Tickets are Pay What You Can.
On 16 November, Cork Lens: IFI Cork on Camera will be presented in partnership with the Irish Film Institute at The Triskel Arts Centre from 2pm. The programme opens with newly discovered footage from the 10th Cork International Film Festival (1965), directed by Cork County Librarian and local historian Pádraig Ó Maidin, featuring festival founder Dermot Breen, Jack Lynch TD, and actors Trevor Howard, James Mason, Cyril Cusack, and Noel Purcell.
This will be followed by the screening of two classic short films adapted from the works of Cork writer Frank O’Connor: ‘Larry’ (Shelah Richards, 1959), and ‘Guests of the Nation’ (Denis Johnston, 1935).
Audiences can continue to explore the city’s moving-image history through the Cork Film Trail, a new series of interactive installations across Cork city centre that bring 70 years of film to life. From the first festival in 1956 to today’s global celebration of cinema, the trail connects iconic locations including Cork City Hall, ARC Cinema, Cork Airport, Kent Train Station and more.
Each stop features podcasts and QR codes linked to CIFF’s digital archive, featuring decades worth of festival programmes, photographs, posters, and behind-the-scenes stories. The trail is designed to transform Cork itself into an open-air museum of film. Complementing the trail, CIFF Walking Tours invite audiences to experience the city’s cinematic heritage up close.