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.

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.

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.

As of September 26th
- Bundoran Cineplex - Booking 071 98 2 9999 Times Online
- Eclipse Cinema, Lifford - Booking 074 91 41963 Times Online

Coming October 3rd
- The Reel Picture, Ballincollig, Cork - Booking 021 487 6300 Times Online
- Cinemax, Bantry, Cork - Booking 027 55777 Times Online
- Empire Movieplex, Ennis, Clare - Booking 065 682 1742 Between 5.30pm and 7.00pm Times Online

Coming October 10th
- Movieworld, Castlebar, Mayo - 1520 927 010 Book Online and Times Online

Current Run

- Omni Santry - Booking 0818 719 719 Book Online
- Movies @ Swords - Booking 1520 880 333 Book Online
- Movies @ Dundrum - Booking 1520 880 333 Book Online
- Galway EYE - Booking 091 780 078 Book Online
- Gate Cinema, Cork - Booking 021 427 9890 Book Online
- IMC Athlone - Booking 090 647 6655 Book Online

Click on the picture above to load up the trailer!

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...

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.