Foyle Film Festival: How It All Got Started

The inaugural event for Foyle Film Festival's 30 years recognises the effort from all those who made Foyle Film Festival what it is today

OPENING LECTURE by Professor Martin McLoone, presented in association with Ulster University.

We begin our 30th anniversary celebrations with a special event to honour the individuals and organisations responsible for founding the Foyle Film Festival, one of the highlight events in the city’s cultural calendar.

Professor Martin McLoone from Ulster University, a founding member of the Foyle Film Festival, will explore the origins of the festival in Derry and the role it played in promoting cinema culture and the film industry in Northern Ireland in the late 1980s.

Foyle Film Festival was founded in 1987 by academics from Ulster University's Media Studies Department, local filmmakers, community–based video organisations such as Derry Film, Video Collective and Northland Films and individuals prominent within the city’s art and cultural scene such as Declan McGonagle, Director of the Orchard Gallery.

In his lecture, Martin will consider key themes such as the festival’s relationship with the local film sector of the 1980s and the efforts to establish a film industry; the festival's role in providing a platform for new Irish cinema; and the emergence of an international Irish cinema with Neil Jordan’s Angel (1982) and Jim Sheridan’s My Left Foot (1989).

Plus: Screening of Jim Curran’s (2007) Documentary ‘20 Years of the Foyle Film Festival’

The lecture and screening was followed with a drinks reception at 6PM.