The selections illustrate the wide variety of feature films and shorts from award-winning contemporary directors in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Brittany. They include animation, documentaries, dramas and comedies. This year’s festival showcases selections in English as well as the Irish, Breton, Welsh and Scottish Gaelic languages with English subtitles.

Free admission to this festival is made possible by the generous support of the Irish Film Institute, Culture Ireland, and the Arts Council – Dublin, Ireland, the UW Anonymous Fund and the partnership with the Wisconsin Union Directorate Film Committee.

Saturday Films

Brittany Who Are the Superheroes?

Melvin is 12 and good at maths but not at professing his love for his classmate, Sarah. When Melvin imagines himself in the role of hero, Director Lalande, a comic book writer, incorporates the comic book characters to good effect. Filmed entirely in Carantec, Brittany and supported by the Breton region and the General Council of Finistère.

Brittany House of Dust

A former resident rushes into a high-rise under demolition to warn playing children. The ethereal animation beautifully depicts the memories evoked as the woman explores the once familiar spaces.

Wales sleep furiously

Winner of Best First Film from the Guardian and an official selection of the Telluride, Locarno and Edinburgh film festivals, sleep furiously, rambles around the small farming community of Trefeurig in mid-Wales listening to conversations and gathering impressions. Director Koppel grew up here and he integrates personalities with scenery to give the observers an indelible portrait of a people still tuned in to their natural surroundings and actively involved with their neighbors. If modernization makes this area unrecognizable in the near future the privileged viewers of this documentary will have had the opportunity to experience a day-in-the-life of its vibrant community where humans, animals and mobile library share the road.

Ireland Broken Song

Winner of the Audience Award at the 2013 Jameson Dublin International Film Festival, Broken Song, follows 3 young hip-hop artists in north Dublin as they rap individually and with their admiring followers. The success of the film is due in large part to the trust that Costello, Git and Willa place in the filmmakers who deliver a thoughtful account of what reviewer Anthony Assad calls the musicians’ meditation on “the thin line separating a life of crime or a life of rhyme.”

Ireland What Richard Did

What Richard Did explores a young man’s responsibility for the terrible consequences of an event at a party fuelled by jealousy and drink. Richard is poised for success with a supportive family as well as the admiration of his community and peers. But do privilege and a promising future exempt the wealthy from culpability? Is the answer complex or simple?

Ireland Jump

It’s New Year’s Eve in glittering Derry and the glamorous costumed characters are celebrating in high style. Meanwhile “Romeo” saves “Juliet” from destruction only to find she is the daughter of the crime boss he expects killed his brother. Jump punctuates the action with black humor and stunning Derry scenery.

Sunday Films

Brittany Lann Vraz

After a 5-year absence Gwenn returns to her village, Lann Vraz, where her family is struggling to maintain their oyster farm. Mark, whom she had hoped would wait for her, is disrupting plans for expansion. Reviving their relationship is not going well and Mark suggests that they leave Lann Vraz and their family ties behind.

Ireland Irish Shorts

Hannah Cohen’s Holy Communion (2012).

Hannah watches her Dublin friends parade in their “princess outfits” to the Catholic Church where they will receive Holy Communion and celebrate with parties and gifts afterwards. Hannah sees no reason why she shouldn’t join in the fun. Rúbaí (2013).

Rúbaí, a precocious 8-year-old, persistently refuses to prepare for her Holy Communion declaring she is an atheist. Mechanic (2013).

A despairing mechanic meets an old man on a lonely road in the Dublin Mountains. But who is really lost and which of them is most in need of shelter? Pet Hate (2012)

What would you do if the mischievous animals in your pet shop deliberately foiled every attempt to attract buyers? Beauty of Ballybrack (2013)

Pensioner Bríd is infatuated with her postman, Larry, but when the attractive young students who come to stay in her house divert his attention, the Beauty resorts to a witch’s brew that produces unexpected results.

Scotland Da La san Damhair /Two Days in October

Da La san Damhair is a mockumentary featuring several participants on their way to compete in the annual Mod. Torcuil with his toothy grin is confident that his fluency in Gaelic will win the coveted prize. Instead his hilarious mistakes set the stage for Ishi a young woman whose mission is to revolutionize traditional singing by adding emphatic gestures and exclamations. The welcome committee includes Flo and Lenny the bumbling proprietors of a B&B with scads of toilet paper reserves.

Ireland Good Vibrations

Good Vibrations is set in Belfast during the 1970s and 80s when opening a record shop on the often-bombed Great Victoria St. did not appear to be an enlightened business decision. But Teri Hooley’s vision and drive united disaffected youth from disparate political and social environments to forge an alternative music culture that defied the guns and bombs. “Good Vibrations” is the name of his shop, his record label and the lasting impression made by the “Godfather of Belfast punk”.