"Quinn effortlessly captures the in-between stage of adolescence, complete with awkwardness, uncertainty and more than a little angst. Both thoughtful and tender, as well as sweet and sincere, her film unravels as an intimate and personal journey through puberty."

A lovely review from Sarah Ward for The Reel Bits, Australia. 32A toured there representing Ireland as part of the Windows on Europe Festival.

Update: The link is down, Sarah has a new review site Play Slash Pause which she will be moving her reviews too, We’ll update the link when it’s available.

IRISH FILMS NEW YORK - 32A at Cantor FIlm Center, NYU, Sat 1st Oct

We're delighted to be back in New York to screen 32A. Both Director and Producer will be there and looking forward to the screening and Q&A. Lots of other great Irish films on that weekend so lots of reasons for people to come.

Saturday 1st October, 6.00PM
Cantor Film Center, NYU
36 East 8th Street
(East of University Place)

32A on the IFNY Festival Site
Purchase Tickets for 32A at IFNY
Show me the Cantor Film Center on a map

  See the event on Facebook

Just a quick update on the latest tour of South America for 32A.

After screenings in Buenos Aires, Argentina and in Asuncion, Paraguay in May, the film was shown in Bahia Blanca, Argentina at the end of July. We also screened in Rosario, Argentina: 13 August and in Salta, Argentina: between 9 and 19 August.

Upcoming screenings include:
- Córdoba, Argentina: 1-4 September
- Chaco, Argentina: during the months of October and November.
- 5 cities in Bolivia: between 10-24 November, more details as we get them.

All of which is fantastic and thanks to the Dept of Foreign Affairs and the Irish FIlm Institute in co-ordinating all of this. We get a lot of visitors from South America to our site and it's a pleasure to know how well the film is received there.

One of the joys of the internet is we know when our film has screened in different territories from all the visitors to our site. We are very happy to have screened in France, a country which has inspired us as filmmakers. To the land of Truffaut et al, thanks for coming by, merci bien.

First things first, 32A is on the Leaving Cert English course for the class of 2012. Which is fantastic. And we really do hope that the students enjoy 32A.

Secondly, we thought we should let you know that the good folks at the IFI have done a study guide which is available from their site. This features interviews and an analysis of the film which should be useful. In addition to that, we also have a study guide prepared for students of English in Germany which accompanied our tour around cinemas over there. People might find the differences and similarities interesting.

Feel free to peruse and download the stills and clips and reviews and history here on our site.

And finally, and not least, the DVD is still available for sale at these links!

Francis Ford Coppola calls it in 1979.

It's the year 32A is set in so... heck we thought we'd share. They're about to award the directing Oscar to Michael Cimino for The Deer Hunter and something tells me he didn't let Ali McGraw know what he was going to chat about. And while he was wrong about the Eighties... in principle he was right on the money.

We’ve been big fans of Arin Crumley and Susan Buice’s Four Eyed Monsters project, a pioneering approach by two filmmakers who blended their online presence, video podcasts, crowd-sourced screenings and the feature itself to bring a small film to a global audience.

Arin has partnered with Kieran Masterson in the UK to develop a new venture OpenIndie. And we’re proud to be a part of that with our feature 32A.

Essentially it’s way that distribution can happen in a very local way, people can log in and express interest in exhibiting feature films to audiences. It could be an individual theatre, or a film society or a particular College or Festival. Filmmakers can, in turn, choose where to show and in what way, either via download or print.

Why the need for this? Independent filmmakers are seeking new ways of reaching audiences as the global market becomes ever more cautious and studios move towards guaranteed success with hugely marketed rides like Tron Legacy or Avatar. Moviemaking becomes more like engineering and less like storytelling. Part of the answer lies in embracing the web technologies, from audience reach and promotion to actual film downloads, when you make a connection with your audience that’s based upon a relationship.

OpenIndie is at an early beta phase right now and things are still being rolled out but they're off to a great start and it’s a ground up venture initiated by filmmakers themselves.

First of all, thank you to all of you who picked up the DVD of 32A. It means a lot to us that so many of you rented the DVD. In fact a lot of you bought it which is amazing. We’ve had wonderful comments and feedback from everyone, which is much appreciated, thanks to all.

Now it’s Christmas and hopefully a few of you will be getting up to a DVD of 32A in your stocking. And in case Santa doesn’t pop one in, you’ll be glad to hear that 32A is on RTE2 this coming New Year’s Eve at 9.00PM. We’re not quite a Morecambe and Wise Christmas Special but it’s still nice to be part of so many people’s Christmas.

It’s like picking up mercury... or herding cats... or supporting the Irish soccer team... Keeping 32A off BitTorrent can feel like a pretty futile exercise however worthy.

So, while we’d really appreciate if people bought the DVD we realise that many people are watching downloaded copies. So we just decided we might as well up a virtual Tip Jar. So if you enjoyed 32A. perhaps you might like deposit a few shekels in it. All of which will help us get to our next project. Cheers...

32A got a nice recommendation on the Afternoon Show on RTE 1 this afternoon which was terrific.

And the wonderful Ian Dempsey on TodayFM gave 32A great mention on the show. His daughter has apparently watched it 450 times...

We're happy to see these running on the streets of Dublin... a great move from our distributors, Element Pictures.

The cover art is in... getting closer now :-)

Great news! The DVD of 32A will be released in Ireland on Friday, October 16th. Available to purchase on that day directly via this site and our distributor, Element. We'll also be available for rent in Xtravision and other stores nationwide.

You can pre-order on Amazon.co.uk. It'll be a little longer there, a couple of weeks. I'll have Irish links up as soon as we have them.

Well, we’ve gotten some excellent reviews in Germany thanks to the sterling efforts of our distributor Fugu Films and coproducer Flying Moon. Now the only English links below are the two ExBerliner magazine articles, but for the others we did a quick Google Translate and have pulled a quote or two out.

Thomas Vorwerk - www.satt.org
“A film by Marian Quinn, who also worked as an actress, sister of Aidan, but also aesthetically a revelation”

Hendrike Bake - www.programmkino.de
“a film for teenagers and adults: tender, wistful, funny, very close to the experiences and emotions of the girls”

Diego Hernandez - Exberliner 73, June 2009 (pdf, e)
“Unlike many others of its kind, this film actually manages to evoke the spirit of pre-teen girls as they discover the joys and frustrations of finding an identity” Also ExBerliner featured an interview with Marian - Exberliner 73 (pdf, engl)

Michael Pöppl - Zitty 13 / 2009 (pdf)
“The film lives primarily from the naturalness of the group of girls, perfect acting.”

Thorsten Krüger - Blickpunkt:Film (pdf)
“a gorgeous, half-autobiographical memory of youth”

Manfred Riepe - epd Film (pdf)
“an atmospheric, lushly staged teenage comedy”

You mightn’t notice the new links on the left... so I thought I’d point out the new page of clips from 32A. We’ve also added some new stills from 32A. and (finally...) a page of quotes from the lovely reviews we’ve received.

Good news if you’re in New York and want to catch 32A. It’s screening this Saturday, July 4th, Independence Day, on PBS, Channel 13, at 11:15PM. Just the thing after a long day at a barbeque, and you finally retreat to your sofa... If you’re going to be later than that, you can catch it at 2:35AM very early Sunday Morning :-)

There’s some nice comments via the link above from people who caught 32A on PBS last time. We enjoyed all the Twitter activity that time too, so we will tune in again for that.

Best Movies by Farr: 32A from Reel 13 on Vimeo.

Jim Farr on Thirteen gives pointers to other Irish movies he likes after his intro to 32A.

32A opened last weekend to great reviews in Germany. That’s the poster for the German release.

ExBerliner, the principal English language magazine said “The story's beauty lies in its simplicity. Quinn is as unpretentious as she is professional, portraying a series of recognizable situations that are bound to make viewers smile and sigh at the resurrection of childhood memories.”. The full review is here.

Initially it screens in Berlin and Frankfurt and then going to other venues. 32A will also open a series of films which tour schools in Germany called (ahem) Britfilms.

A goodie... A very belated and happy congrats to our Director of Photography, PJ Dillon on his IFTA Award for Cinematography for his work on 32A. A gifted, talented man in many regards, his own debut feature is due soon. We’d worked with PJ in New York on Marian’s first film. He’s also shot two other short films we’ve produced which Pat and Joe Walker have directed. He really did stellar work on 32A and we were thrilled he got it. And I know it meant a lot to PJ to receive it from Chris Doyle, the incredible cinematographer, who delighted in keeping RTE on their toes, I can tell you.

Okay... a flurry of festivals are coming up.

For Valentines... straight after the IFTAs, (of which more anon...) the Glasgow Film Festival on Monday 16th and Tuesday 17th, which we will be attending.

Then all in and around St. Patrick’s Day

- New York at the Craic Festival, on Friday 13th.

- San Francisco at the Irish Film Festival,

- The Women’s Film Festival in Vermont

We’re also screening in the Garter Lane Arts Centre in Waterford as part of their Spring Season on Sunday 15th March.

Well, fantastic news really. 32A is shortlisted for Best Feature in this years IFTA awards, which is very nice. Thanks guys.

The other good news to report is that our wonderful Director of Photography, PJ Dillon is nominated for Best Cinematography and he is in with an excellent chance, his work has been widely praised since our film launched.

Also, our wonderful Costume Designer, Driscoll Calder,is nominnated. She did such a marvellous job, came in under budget on a tiny budget, a huge cast, and a period film. The woman’s not only talented, she’s amazing.

There’s something about bring on Thirteen/WNET that gives us no small amount of pleasure. It was definitely the principal television channel we watched during our time in NYC. It’s one of the things we miss most about being over here. Thankfully we get to watch the ever excellent Charlie Rose online and we buy quite a few of the shows on iTunes but we still miss our Thirteen.

So it gives us a lot of pleasure to say that on Saturday 14th, PBS viewers in the city... you can watch 32A in the metropolitan area. We’re screening as part of their Reel13 programme.

Okay... a flurry of festivals are coming up.

For Valentines... straight after the IFTAs, (of which more anon...) the Glasgow Film Festival on Monday 16th and Tuesday 17th, which we will be attending.

Then all in and around St. Patrick’s Day

- New York at the Craic Festival, on Friday 13th.

- San Francisco at the Irish Film Festival,

- The Women’s Film Festival in Vermont

We’re also screening in the Garter Lane Arts Centre in Waterford as part of their Spring Season on Sunday 15th March.

The lovely and talented Donna Lewis whose song ‘Shout’ is in our film, has been nominated in the Pop category for a Hollywood Music Award.

Shout is our one contemporary song in the film, the minute our composer Gerry Leonard recommended it to us, we knew it was right for the end titles. Gerry had worked with Donna on her last album, In The Pink, and thought it would be a good match.

Thought you might all enjoy the video for Shout and congrats to Donna on the song being nominated. Terrific news!

Okay, it’s their 32nd festival but we own their ass....

Our first screenings in South America at it’s most prestigious film festival, the Sao Paolo International Film Festival. To say ‘Wish we were there...’ doesn’t really begin to describe how we feel about it. Still three screenings next week and we’ll be lighting the old candles back here in wintry wet Leitrim.

Got to get one of those posters.

Well it’s Stateside for a few weeks. We’re participating in four festivals in North America over the coming month.

First off is Woodstock. Their festival has become something of an indie filmmaker haunt since the other two big festivals in the city got so... well... big. Marian certainly seemed to have a good time at the Q&A afterwards. The woman behind her is Martha Frankel, a founder of the Festival. In our first screening 32A played to a sold out crowd, garnering some postive blog reports instantly, including a nice review from Times Herald Record. Here’s a wee snippet-

“It’s a semi-autobiographical tale of growing up as a 13 year old girl in 1979 Ireland told simply and perfectly. There’s no bells and whistles here – just a little story told with extreme expertise and truly great performances from four first time actresses.”

Coolarooney...

There’s also a lovely portrait of Gerry Leonard, our composer and friend, in the Poughkeepsie Journal, including an interesting video.

We’ve got another screening on Sunday in the Rosendale Theater, an old dame of a cinema, huge too. There’s only a few tickets left, so great to hear.

We’re in the cinema in Ireland commencing August 15th. We’ve been busy cutting our trailer up with the gang in Screen Scene in Dublin, Jim Duggan has a nice crew up there, Peter, Ciara, Warren and Mark looked after us very well. We had Conor Ferguson direct it and they all did a great job. Conor has a lovely short out at the moment called Atlantic which screened in Galway this year.

So the venues: Starting AUGUST 15th

Dublin: IFI Cinemas
Booking office: 01.679.5744 Book Online

Carrick on Shannon: Cineplex
Booking office: 071.967.2000 Book Online

Sligo: Gaiety Cinema
Booking office: 071.917.4001

Oh the home turf... Nothing like it. A crack of light perhaps though in the not too distant future.

We’re going to be in the Lights Out Festival in the IFC, with a ‘gala’ screening on Tuesday, July 15th at 6.00. There’s going to be a bit of a party and they hoping to see as much of the cast and crew there as can come, so this should be tremendous fun.

We’re working with the IFI’s education department on developing a package for schools, particularly the transition year students so we’re looking forward to building something interesting out of that, more details to follow.

Lights Out tours to Ballinamore, Manorhamilton, Ennis, Kilkenny, Dundalk, Youghal, and Moate. When the schedule clarifies we’ll be updating here. We’re hoping to tour to at least some of these ourselves as well.

Okay... a little dizzy hopping from coast to coast... but probably no more than usual. We’ve had two screenings in Seattle at the Seattle International Film Festival there.

This weekend we’re in Newport, Rhode Island on the other side of the States. We will have some friends attending so looking forward to hearing what they thought. There’s a screening tonight and one on Sunday afternoon....

Meanwhile back in Europe... The Emden Film Festival in Northern Germany is run by some very nice people indeed and they invited us over for their screenings of 32A. They have a screening tonight and on Saturday 7th June.

So a busy weekend for 32A. Co-incidentally Marian’s birthday is on the 6th so great to have her feature shown in two different continents at the same time...

Following on from all of this is a screening in Quebec in Canada at the prestigious Tremblant Film Festival. Screenings will be on Thursday June 19th and Saturday June 21st.

And last but definitely not least, we have our debut in the Southern Hemisphere... We’re in the Melbourne Film Festival in Australia... Screening on Thursday August 7th. They used 32A for the cover of their Next Gen brochure (thanks!) and wrote a neat two line summary of 32A which I think I’m going to use... where were they during all those pitches...

San Francisco... here we come! I get to travel over as well and finally visit a part of the world that’s always fascinated me. I’ll get to see an old College friend, John, who lives in Berkeley and Marian’s brother, Paul, will travel up from LA to meet us as well. Should be great.

Right over that there Golden Gate Bridge is Marin County and the Mill Valley Film Festival where we’re screening no fewer than three times.

The Mill Valley people have been great to deal with and it’s kind of no surprise when you see that it originates out of the California Film Institute. Much like our own Irish Film Institute, it does research, film curation and has a very active Education department, headed up by an Irish guy, John Morrison. Given that and the interest 32A might hold for a young audience, we’ve a screening with local film students first thing on Tuesday morning, with a Q&A with myself and Marian. We’re looking forward to it.

Then that’s followed by two screenings together with Q&As.

Tuesday 7th October, 7:15PM

Sunday 12th October, 12:45PM

Tickets can be booked at (877) 874-MVFF or online using this ole’ link.

Our prints are rather busy this month... And we're sadly spending more time on (the admittedly wonderful...) Google Earth than on an airplane but we are very happy to see our film being screened and out in the wiid.

BRITSPOTTING, GERMANY
Starting back in Germany with Britspotting, which does a three city tour of Germany: Berlin, Stuttgart and Cologne. I guess Paddyspotting might not be quite kosher but I'm tempted to propose they use it as an alternate title every other year.

The dates and times for Berlin are set
Tue 15 April. • 20:15 • Berlin • Hackesche Höfe FT
Sat 12 April • 20:15 • Berlin • fsk-Kino am Oranienplatz

And the screenings for Cologne will be during 24 - 27 April and Stuttgart during 1-7 May.

KRISTIANSAND, NORWAY
Also coming up next are the good people at Kristiansand in Norway, one of the largest film festivals for young people in Scandanavia where it's still snowing apparently.... They have two screenings of 32A as follows:

Tue 22 April • 16:30
Fri 25 April • 09:45

NEWPORT BEACH, CALIFORNIA
Sunnier, I bet... somehow... Their programme is not onlne yet but their dates are 24 April - 1 May.

Photo: Steve McFarland via Flickr

The New York Children's International Film Festival exists to promote 'intelligent, passionate and provocative cinema' for young people and are including 32A in their upcoming programme, which is great. We're very happy to be screening back where our first draft of the script was developed and can't wait to see some old friends again.

Their full schedule is at their website.

For those of you in NYC, screening dates and venues are as follows:

Symphony Space, Sunday Mar 2nd at 11.00AM, Directions
IFC Center, Saturday March 8th at 11:30AM. Directions

Tickets are available via TicketWeb or the NYCIFF. They sell out fast according to the folks at the festival so get your skates on...

Those of you waiting for a screening in Dublin, the good news is that the Festival have announced their schedule.

We're on Friday evening on the 22nd of February.

Book tickets for 32A here

Update: Sold out first day!

If 32A had a second home it would have to be Berlin, the home of our co-producer, Roshanak Behesht Nedjad of Flying Moon Filmproduktion, as well as Rune Schweitzer, our editor and where we met Lars Ginzel, our sound designer and his team. It's always been a great city and festival from our point of view, we find it good to work there.

The wonderful news is that we have been selected for inclusion in the upcoming Berlinale, one of the worlds leading film festivals, it's an honour and we're thrilled.

We've long enjoyed visiting Berlin and are looking forward to be going with one of our own features, it's a great city and the Berlinale is probably our favourite big festival... can't wait!

We decided not to submit 32A for this years IFTAs given that we haven't had a cinema run, the only Irish screening was at the Galway Film Fleadh. But we were delighted to find out that the Academy have shortlisted Marian as a Rising Star in any case. The ceremony is on February 17th.

Marian on the right, with Aidan, her cousin Deirdre and Mom and Dad

Galway has always been very good to us... from pitching at the Fair to following through with financiers, it's been always felt like a home for 32A.

It was a really easy choice to launch the film there, and we couldn't have been happier with how it went. The audience was terrific and it was a thrill for us to see the film with so many people really going with it, the response really meant a lot to us.

The weekend couldn't have ended better with Marian collecting the Best First Feature Award, we're thrilled skinny!

More pictures from Bern

We really liked Bern where we did our grade. Charile Huser and the gang at Schwarzfilm are excellent at what they do and it was a real pleasure to work with them. We did it the old way, optically, and while the world goes digital it's nice to work your way through a process where an experienced hand guides you rather than an endless range of choices beset you.

The town might be incredibly cute but it's also hopping. Lots of culture, both high and counter, and really good food everywhere. We particularly liked all the arcaded streets, Ireland's architects and planners should be shipped en masse for a weekend, it might have rained the entire week but we never got wet.

More pictures from the mix

We've commenced our mix... This is Lars Ginzel, our Sound Designer off to work at the ElektroFilm Dolby sound stage in Berlin.

It's going to be a busy few weeks, We premiere at the Galway Fim Fleahdh this coming July and there's a grading to be done in the meantime....

Update: Our cast and crew screening will be before the Fleadh, check your email or text....

We've completed ADR, in Jim Sheridan's studio in Maynooth. No not that Jim Sheridan, the Camembert Quartet Jim Sheridan....

We brought in the four girls who's quick analysis of ADR was "oh, this is like karaoke...' and we realised they've probably been lip-syncing since they were, like, four... And all the usual worries adult cast have were just not an issue. And it went like a dream.

We got bring in some others too, Kerri and Catriona who play The Two Marys in school, and Maedhbh, Jack and Liam who play of the rest of Maeve's family. Pearl, Hazel and Julia came in to play schoolgirls and Rebecca and Gary were a great find, two extras who gave a lot during our Grove scene also came and mucked in. Thanks all, excellent work!

Now, it all moves to mainland Europe. Negative cutting in Berne, Switzerland and sound edit in Berlin.

Colm Farrell, our assistant editor, just completed the cut list export today and we can set the picture track of final post in motion. We're using Schwarzfilm in Berlin as our lab and this will mean that the entire process is now over there once ADR is complete and the title design is done.

The lead producer and director will be seeing more of Aer Lingus and Ryanair than they want.

ADR takes place over the coming week. So looking forward to seeing the German sound team land again and all our cast...

How sweet it is... to finish editing... another phase done in 32A. And moving the process over to Berlin now for the sound edit, prints and mix. Going to the Berlinale soon to meet up with our German co-producer, Roshi of Flying Moon, and the sound designer, Lars Ginzel.