The Gearr-t of something beautiful
The loss of the IndieCork Film Festival last year after 13 wonderful instalments was a huge blow to Cork, but we needn’t have worried as a new festival has arrived.
Building on the legacy of IndieCork, with some familiar faces back on the team, new national short film festival, Gearr, will open on Leeside on 8 October.
Gearr, meaning ‘short’ in Irish, brings together some of the finest upcoming and established talent in the world of short films. Running for four days and nights at The Arc Cinema, the new festival promises innovative and bold filmmaking, championing the short form and giving rising directors an opportunity to showcase their work.
As part of the inaugural festival, Gearr has made ten places available for a unique collaborative filmmaking workshop. The workshop will be held in the Blacknight Festival Centre and will be delivered by the expert and highly experienced team from ‘Off-Courts Festival’, Trouville, introducing participants to the collaborative and spontaneous approach of Kino filmmaking. The Irish shorts section of the programme is split into three categories: ‘Common Ground’, ‘Shadow Lands’, and ‘From Ireland’s North’, each exploring different aspects of Irish society, including community, identity, murder, mystery, comedy, and mysticism.
Gearr’s world shorts is also delivered as a three-part instalment, with category titles: ‘Love in Low Tide’, ‘The Strange Places We Carry’, and ‘Held Breath’, featuring submissions from France, New Zealand, Canada, Poland, Spain, Ukraine, and the UK in a truly diverse and international programme.
Meanwhile, Made in Cork will comprise two categories displaying local talent titled ‘Perspectives’ and ‘Pastiche’, with a collection of short films that explore poetry, memory, connections, from pulp, sci-fi, and ‘county’ westerns to thrillers, heists, horror, and dark comedy.
The team behind Gearr has over 20 years of experience running international film festivals and agencies.
“Short films have always had a special place in independent cinema,” says Festival Director Peter Zemek, a former programmer for IndieCork.
“It gives filmmakers the freedom to experiment, take chances, and tell stories that might not otherwise find their way to the screen.
It can be intimate, unexpected, funny, difficult, beautiful or all of these things at once. That spirit is at the heart of Gearr, and I'd like to thank Blacknight and The Arc to help us make it possible.”
There will be four festival awards decided by an industry jury at the end of the festival, namely a Best ‘Made in Cork, The Blacknight Award for Best Irish Short, Best International Short, and The Spirit of Gearr Award.