An adaptation of the final novel from John McGahern, one of Ireland’s greatest writers, That They May Face The Rising Sun is a lyrical celebration of the everyday. Joe (Barry Ward) and Kate Ruttledge (Anna Bederke) have returned from London to live and work among a small lakeside community near to where Joe grew up. Now deeply embedded in the life around the lake, the drama of a year in their lives and those of the memorable characters that move about them unfolds through the rituals of work, play and the passing seasons.

In passages of great beauty and truth, Pat Collins, in his second feature film following several acclaimed documentaries, sensitively interprets McGahern’s work, drawing out the novel’s deceptive simplicity, and transforming an enclosed world into an everywhere.

Winner of the Best Film at the 2024 Irish Film & Television Awards.

From the makers of GAZA (Sundance 2019), comes a new cinematic odyssey that penetrates deep below the surface of Beirut, a still beautiful, yet deeply troubled city on the brink of financial collapse. This film was Ireland’s selection for the Oscars in 2024.

In Sabra, one of Beirut’s toughest urban slums, sectarianism and violence is a permanent way of life.

Rabia, a 38-year-old hardworking but undocumented Lebanese mother cannot afford to admit her chronically ill daughter to hospital, leaving the life of her innocent child hanging in the balance.

In the Shadow of Beirut weaves four compelling storylines together in a searing portrait of a people and a city struggling to survive amidst some of the most difficult living conditions imaginable.

Through intimate, character-driven and cinematic storytelling, the stark reality of life for the protagonists of the film is symbolic of the hundreds of thousands of others who fight for survival in the most diverse country in the Middle East, which has the highest per capita refugee numbers in the world.

Despite the inhumane conditions and enormous challenges, the areas’ inhabitants possess unfathomable reserves of resilience and even hope, as they go about their daily lives in the struggle to forge a brighter future for their families.

Shabby and unfulfilled, middle-aged middle-class Marian finds that her recent retirement only serves to shine a light on her deep unhappiness as her cruel and tight-fisted husband Nigel controls her Life. She stumbles upon a job as a census enumerator and, on her challenging inner-city route, encounters Jewel, a teenage girl who has been living her life as a prostitute since her mother abandoned her. 

The two become reluctant friends and Marian comes to admire the girl’s independence and strength, as she realises the extent of her abusive marriage. Jewel helps Marian find the strength to break free and she realises that, with her new friend by her side, she has everything she needs to forge a new and empowering future.

Winner of Best Independent Film at the 35th Galway Film Fleadh and Best Narrative Feature at the 2023 Kerry International Film Festival.

Followed by Q&A with Patricia Kelly and producer Paul Fitzsimons.

One of the aims of Irish Film Berlin is to showcase filmmaking talent from different regions in Ireland. In 2023, it was the Irish Midlands. In 2024, it will be filmmakers and films from the Mid-West. This programme of shorts is specially curated by Film in Limerick from the ENGINE shorts scheme. Some of the filmmakers will also be travelling to Berlin to present their short films.

Film in Limerick is the regional film office for the Mid-West region covering the counties of Limerick, Clare and Tipperary. They promote and support filming in the region as well as running training and production initiatives to develop local creative talent and crew.

Film in Limerick is a project of Innovate Limerick and was developed to support the region’s rapidly growing film and TV industries. It runs ENGINE shorts as well as courses and other initiatives for aspiring and emerging filmmakers.

Shorts screening:

Baps & Buns | Noel McInerney
Sour Milk | Mark Keane
First Date | Clara Planelles
Remember to Feed the Birds | Sohaila Lindheim
Calf | Jamie O’Rourke
Dadboy | John Haugh
You're Not Home | Derek Ugochukwu
Vonnie: Ireland's Forgotten Fashion Icon | Renata Lima

On December 27th 1973, German businessman, factory manager, and honorary consul Thomas Niedermayer was kidnapped from his home in Belfast. He was never seen alive again by friends or family. He became one of the ‘disappeared’, and it seemed that no-one knew what had happened to him. A frenzied web of media speculation led to spurious reports of Niedermayer’s alcoholism, philandering, and gun running, while IRA military propaganda triggered investigations into loyalist responsibility for the murder. Niedermayer’s wife Ingeborg and his young daughters spent the next seven years not knowing if Thomas was alive or dead until, in 1980, an IRA informant led to the recovery of his body.

Director Gerry Gregg (Condemned to Remember) accompanies Niedermayer’s adult granddaughters as they embark on a painful journey of discovery – framed by writer David Blake Knox’s uncompromising investigation of deceit, collusion, and unhealed wounds which challenge the possibility of forgiveness.

Bríd Ní Neachtain stars as the recently widowed Róise, who believes that a stray dog embodies the spirit of her late husband Frank. Isolated since his death two years ago, the appearance of the dog shakes her out of herself. Ignoring her son’s and others’ protests, a rejuvenated Róise goes all out to indulge the dog’s love of hurling, steak, and a favourite chair, while starting to believe in reincarnation. 

This is a warm-hearted, witty and uplifting tale of finding hope in the darkest of places.

In 2024, the Festival introduced its first call for submissions for short films from Ireland, the wider Irish diaspora and non-Irish filmmakers whose films are about Ireland, include Irish talent or Irish people. This curated programme includes some of those selected shorts and other award-winning Irish live-action shorts.

Films screening include:

Anima | Conor Healy
Nothing to be Done | Conor Hooper, Jamie Hooper
Cantata | Dave Fox
Letter to Lia | Nicky Larkin
Shakes Versus Shav | Damian Farrell, Gerry Hoban
The Final Chapter | Terence White
Warts and All | Pat Shortt
Cumha | Elena Horgan
Knockser | Darragh Foy
Lamb | Sinéad O'Loughlin

England, 1941, sisters Thomasina and Martha have created a machine, LOLA, that can intercept radio and TV broadcasts from the future. This delightful apparatus allows them to embrace their inner Bowie years before he was even born and place bets knowing what the outcome will be. But with World War II escalating the sisters decide to use the machine as a weapon of intelligence, with world-altering consequences.

In a clever meta-narrative twist, the events of the film are chronicled by Martha, an aspiring filmmaker. The 16mm sound film we are watching is hers. Andrew Legge’s fascination with found footage, early cinema and ingenious inventions, explored with such confident whimsy in his short films (The Unusual Inventions of Henry Cavendish, Chronoscope, The Girl with the Mechanical Maiden), is here given full flight to create a time-travel odyssey that transports us to a cleverly imagined past, underscored by the music of The Kinks, Elgar and Neil Hannon (of the Divine Comedy).