Virgin Media Dublin International Film Festival 2021 – some recommendations!

Our Monday cinema nights might be on hold until safer times, but our enthusiasm for great movies has not diminished – on the contrary! We are delighted to support our long-time partners at Virgin Media Dublin International Film Festival (online this year) and to recommend a selection of titles we would be very keen to screen at Riverbank Arts Centre, if circumstances allowed. We know that our patrons miss their cinema nights in the venue and even though we can’t replace this experience, we would like to encourage you to give those titles a try and to watch them in the comfort of your own homes.

Our partners at VMDIFF have offered us a special discount code: 2021RIVERBANK –  you can use this code to get 10% discount if you are booking any of these or other VMDIFF events!

Some recommendations from our cinema programmer, Alex Rosiak

TO THE MOON (March 5th)  – booking link
Tadhg O’Sullivan’s joyful documentary is a cinematic love letter to the moon, celebrating the night sky over the course of a lunar month. There’s a mesmerizing quality to the film, which along with extraordinary footage from around the globe, looks at the moon’s place in literature, culture and storytelling. Aided and abetted by a remarkable score, To The Moon is contemplative, poetic and sincere.
DIRECTOR: Tadhg O’Sullivan (Ireland, 2020)

LIMBO (March 5th) – booking link
Four asylum seekers await word of their futures while staying on a distant Scottish island in Ben Sharrock’s award-winning comedy/drama. Waiting to hear of their fate, they endeavour to embrace the very different people, climate and culture which represents their new home. In telling their story, Sharrock mines elements of deadpan humour, satire and humanity as the refugees aim for a sense of identity and camaraderie in this strange new place.
DIRECTOR Ben Sharrock (UK, 2020)

MY LITTLE SISTER (March 7th) – booking link
German acting icon Nina Hoss gives a characteristic first-rate performance in a drama selected to compete for Berlin’s Golden Bear. She is Lisa, a playwright with writer’s block who yearns for the love and friendship of her twin brother Sven, an actor living abroad. When he’s diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukaemia, she vows to do anything she can to get him back on stage – regardless of the personal and emotional costs.
DIRECTORS: Stéphanie Chuat, Véronique Reymond (Switzerland, 2020)

I NEVER CRY (March 8th) – booking link
The Polish/Irish emigrant experience is explored to moving effect in this emotional account of the economic migrant experience from writer/director Piotr Domalewski (Silent Night). After teenager Ola hears of the sudden death of her father, a Polish man working as a builder in Ireland, she must travel to repatriate his body. But their relationship, we discover, was complicated, and in death Ola may finally get to know more about her father’s life.
DIRECTOR Piotr Domalewski (2020)

GAGARINE (March 9th) – booking link
Teenager Yuri is named for Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, and so is the housing project where he lives. Even as he dreams of leaving home to become an astronaut himself, he is determined to save the project from planned demolition. Alséni Bathily has received strong reviews for his lead role in this Cannes breakout hit from Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh
DIRECTORS:  Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh (France, 2020)

NEW ORDER (March 12th) – booking link
A wealthy couple’s wedding in Mexico comes under the radar of protesters during a working-class uprising in Michel Franco’s dystopian thriller. When a man approaches the party seeking support for his sick wife, he’s treated largely with distain as a violent coup unfolds on the streets. Franco, following on his Jury Prize winner at Cannes for April’s Daughter, traces the collapse of a political system in microcosm in his tense commentary on inequality.
DIRECTOR: Michel Franco (Mexico, France, 2020)

Congratulations to Grainne Humphreys and the team at VMDIFF on a great programme this year – we could have included dozens more recommendations!