Dún Laoghaire students show what they are made of

Fair dues to film students of Dún Laoghaire's National Film School. Where most students graduate with a lingering hangover, this first batch from the new degree programme emerge with a piece of cinema under their belt. Their graduate showcase, held last Monday night in Dublin's Lighthouse cinema, showed many different sides: there were TV advertisements, short films, short documentaries, even TV segments.

Throughout was a strong sense of social engagement, though the theme of suicide weighed perhaps a little too heavy. There were three stand-out works: Siobhán Connery's delicate and revealing documentary Missing zeroed in on the missing person case of Ellen Coss Brown, and the effect it has had on her brother trying to find her. Where many documentarians concern themselves with processing information, Connery uses her camera to capture feeling.

Seán Branigan's Martin, a Joycean-inspired drama about an alcoholic battling his demons, was rife with Irish preoccupations, but it is well-written and told with class and economy.

The most ambitious short was written and directed by Donal Foreman. You're Only What I See Sometimes is a film about a one-night stand very much inspired by the fleeting impression­ism of love and memory in the work of Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-Wai. This was ambitious, confident stuff, told with visual aplomb. Foreman's film contained the cinematic moment of the night: a burst of spontaneous bedroom dancing from Hannah McDonnell that reminded me of Godard's freewheeling cinema. Anna Karina couldn't have done better herself. PL

Keira Knightley tipped for
'My Fair Lady' remake

Columbia Pictures are planning a new version of My Fair Lady. Four Weddings And A Funeral producer Duncan Kenworthy and impressario Cameron Makintosh are going back to the original Lerner and Loewe Broadway musical and the George Bernard Shaw play on which it was based rather than remaking the 1964 film hit starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. Keira Knight­ley is top of the list for the role of Eliza Doolittle. All of which will be good news for the National Gallery of Ireland, which benefits from the Shaw royalties.

Ciaran Carty

ALL IRELAND TOP FIVE MOVIES

(weekend 6-8 June)

1 (1) Sex And the City (Michael Patrick King) ¤606,571 (¤2,246,527 to date)

2 (2) Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull (Steven Spielberg) ¤373,207 (3,471,112)

3 (-) Superhero Movie (Craig Mazin) ¤143,887 (-)

4 (-) Gone Baby Gone (Ben Affleck) ¤131,266 (-)

5 (-) Prom Night (Nelson McCormack) ¤90,664 (-)

Compiled from Sunday Tribune industry sources