Guth Gufa: A Documentary Film Festival will take place in the Gaeltacht village of Gortahork in North West Donegal.
The festival in it's third year will run from May 15th to the 18th screening films for social change and human rights.
The festival Guth Gafa translates as 'Captive Voice' aims to promote films made through the Irish language and to promote the use of Gaeilge by operating the festival through the Irish language.
The central theme of this year's festival are films for social change, such as western economies secretly supporting dictatorships, raising awareness of AIDS in Africa, the Israeli Palestinian conflict, unemployment and its effects, female endurance in hostile circumstances etc.
Directors of the selected films will be present for discussion with the audience after their films has been screened and throughout the weekend creating an environment of friendship, debate and exchange between locals and visitors.
Shauna Boyle Guest Programmer told The Epoch Times by email that "The vision of this festival is to bring outstanding films and film-makers to this remote area our films on the edge. The festival is compact and familiar and our motto of 'see all the films, meet all the directors' is the very essence of Guth Gafa."
The screenings and seminars take place in Ostan Loch Altan, Gortahork, the National Cinemobile, located in Gortahork for the duration of the festival, and An Chuirt Hotel (a 4 star hotel twelve minutes from Gortahork). Frequent shuttle buses are available between the festival venues.
Alan Berliner, opened the first festival with his film "Wide Awake." In last years festival the presence of Geoff Gilmore (director of the Sundance Festival) was one of the highlights as was the premiere of Donal McIntyre's "A very British Gangster" Some Human Rights films that featured in 2007 were 'New Year Baby', '9 star hotel', 'China Blue', 'Exile Family Movie.'
This year's films highlighting human rights include 'Angels in the Dust', 'Shadow of the Holy Book', 'To see if I'm smiling', 'Railroad all stars', 'This way up', etc.), we also run a Seminar called "Film making for Social Change" (with guest panelists Hugh Purcell of Esodoc, Louise Hogarth, award-winning director of "Angels in the Dust", Mattea De Jong from 'Movies that Matter', activist film-maker Jim Gilliam from Brave New Films in the USA ) and a special Radharc screening of two human right films.
Seminars for this year include 'Getting your documentary seen The Future of Distribution, 'The Future of Irish-Language Broadcasting, Screen Training Ireland Master-class, Activist Film making The Creation and Distribution of No-budget Films, RTÉ Regional Policy presentation – Ray McCarthy, Post-screening Discussions, Polish Season & side-bar events and Postcards to the Edge a film installation
Getting there:
Gortahork is located in North West Donegal on the N56 route, around 40 km from Letterkenny. It can be easily reached by car, air or bus.
By Road
From Letterkenny, follow the N56 through the following towns: Kilmacrennan > Creeslough > Dunfanaghy > Falcarragh. Gortahork is the next village after Falcarragh.
By Bus:
There are a number of private operators who run regular services through Gortahork. These include John McGinley (Dublin - Donegal), Feda O'Donnell (Galway - Donegal) and Patrick Gallagher (Belfast - Donegal). We are also accessible from other areas of the country by taking Bus Eireann as far as Letterkenny and taking one of the aforementioned services onwards to Gortahork.
Feeds