22/09/2003

The Irish Film Institute's Stranger Than Fiction Documentary Festival and Market will present over 25 documentary films from all over the world, workshops, public debates and competitions from October 2-5. The eclectic-mix for this year's programme will include Oscar winner Kevin Macdolnald's Touching the Void and new Irish works from Barrie Dowfall (Ned Kelly-The True Story), Tyrone Productions (The Sawdoctors) and Extreme Productions (Citizen Alec). The audience will be able to vote for the Best Irish Documentary and discover films on a wide range of topics: from biographies (including Abbas Kiarostami: The Art of Living) to music, sports, and politics.

Parallel to the Festival organised at and by the Irish Film Institute in Dublin, the Market, organised by Screen Producers Ireland, will give Irish producers the opportunity to meet with commissioning editors from key European broadcasters, for example Wolfgang Landgraeber, WDR (Germany), Wolter Braamhorst, AVRO (Holland), Micheál O Meallaigh, TG4 (Ireland), Doris Hepp, ZDF/Arte, Leena Pasanen, YLE (Finland), or Jordi Ambros, TV3 (Spain). Finally the famous American filmmaker Steve James (Hoop Dreams) will present his new film Stevie and participate in a Directors Master-class.