'Once' was shot in two weeks and made for $130,000. Its lyrical treatment of the friendship between a street musician and a Czech emigre - played by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova - has been compared favourably to Jean-Luc Godard's neo-realist musical 'A Woman Is A Woman' and Alan Parker's 'The Commitments'. Screen International welcomed it as "the revelation of Sundance, " an unheralded gem that "earned adoring praise from critics and ecstatic responses from public crowds."

DIFF, which runs until 25 February, will also feature Ed Burns's 'The Groomsman' and Richard Linklater's 'Fast Food Nation', which screens as part of a Jeremy Thomas retrospective.

Meanwhile, another Irish director, Martin McDonagh, winner of an Oscar for his short, 'Six Shooter', started production in Belgium last Monday on his first feature, 'In Bruges', a darkly funny suspense thriller starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as a couple of hit men trying to lie low.

IRELAND TOP FIVE MOVIES (weekend 2-4 February) 1 (-) Dreamgirls (Bill Condon) Euro259,250 (-) 2 (2) Blood Diamond (Ed Zwick) Euro223,502 (Euro741,876 to date) 3 (1) Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) Euro206,289 (Euro2,617,748) 4 (-) Notes On A Scandal( Richard Eyre) Euro130,570 (-) 5(3) The Pursuit of Happyness (Gabriele Muccino) Euro96,279 (Euro1,386,275) Compiled from Sunday Tribune industry sources US TOP FIVE MOVIES (weekend 2-4 February) 1 (-) The Messengers $14.5m (-) 2(-) Because I Said So $13m (-) 3(1) Epic Movie $8.2m ($29.4m to date) 4(3) Night At The Museum $6.3m ($225.4m) 5(2) Smokin' Aces $6.3m ($24.9m)