A fabulously immersive programme for the Kilcar International Film Festival 2026

The countdown is on to the Kilcar International Film Festival, and there is a fantastic selection of screenings and related activities taking place over the four days.

Running from Friday, January 30 to Monday, February 2, those attending can look forward to thought-provoking and entertaining films, often with a deep cultural resonance. The festival programme also incorporates a  number of opportunities to engage with directors or special guests.

All screenings take place in Áislann Chill Chartha. Tickets can be purchased for individual films, with a limited number of festival day and weekend passes available. Booking is via Aislann Chill Chartha CTR at ticketsource.com with links, updates and previews available via the Kilcar International Film Festival Facebook page. 

Friday

The festival opens on Friday, January 30 with a screening of Cinegael Paradiso at 8pm.

Organisers describe this film as a heartfelt tribute from filmmaker Robert Quinn to his father, Bob Quinn- one of Ireland's most fiercely independent directors. 

Through affectionate recollections of an eccentric childhood in the Connemara Gaeltacht, Robert revisits Cinegael, the radical independent cinema hub Bob founded in the 1970s. Alive with humour, rare archival material and vivid local history, the film explores Cinegael's enduring impact on community life, artistic freedom, and the possibilities of Irish filmmaking.

Saturday

A Shooting on the Brandon (2025) is described by the Irish Film Institute (IFI) as ‘part documentary, part daydream, part getting lost on purpose.’

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It goes on to say: “This personal multi-layered essay film positions Kilkenny’s highest peak, Brandon Hill, near the River Barrow and Graiguenamanagh, as the protagonist with supporting roles from a range of colourful characters – local historians, al fresco religious congregations, re-enactors, and filmmakers.

“Through alternative documentary methods, home movies, re-enactments, and meticulous research, Higgins, an award-winning experimental filmmaker, explores the past and present of the hill with a honed, formal approach that remains playful and humorous.”

It will be screened at 1.30pm. 

Saturday’s mid-afternoon feature takes place at 4pm, and is a screening of Mark Jenkin's striking debut feature Bait (2019). 

It follows a traditional Cornish fisherman left without a boat as his brother refits their father's vessel for tourist trips catering to the influx of London money. With their childhood home now an upmarket holiday rental, Martin is pushed to the margins of the harbour community his family once anchored. 

Shot on hand-processed 16mm film, Bait is a visually arresting, darkly funny and deeply affecting portrait of a community under pressure, and one which is sure to resonate with fishing communities in Donegal. 

This will be followed at 6pm by Silence, Pat Collins' poetic debut feature which tells the story of sound recordist Eoghan as he travels from Berlin back to Donegal in search of landscapes untouched by human noise.

Organisers say: “Wandering through the stark beauty of western Ireland, conversations with locals surface themes of memory, exile, culture and home. 

“Immersive and meditative, Silence is an aural journey into place and the spaces between words.”

The co-director will be in attendance for the screening.

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Later on Saturday, The Graceless Age - The Ballad of John Murry shows how, at the height of acclaim for his album The Graceless Age (2013), American singer-songwriter John Murry spiralled into heroin addiction, eventually arriving in Ireland shattered and adrift. 

Festival organisers say: “In this powerful and deeply intimate documentary, director Sarah Share retraces Murry’s traumatic past and long struggle with opioids as he embarks on a journey toward recovery, renewal, and artistic rebirth. 

“A raw, compassionate, and ultimately hopeful portrait of survival and song.”

The 8pm screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Sarah Share.

Sunday

Sunday’s programme gets underway with another insightful Sarah Share film, If I Should Fall From Grace - The Shane McGowan Story.

Organisers say: “Newly remastered, this unflinching, music-driven portrait offers rare insight into the tumultuous life of legendary Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan. Featuring intimate interviews with family, friends, Victoria Mary Clarke and contemporaries such as Nick Cave - alongside raw one-on-one encounters with Shane himself - the film weaves candid conversation with electrifying archival performances and fly-on-the-wall footage from London and Ireland. 

“A definitive exploration of a singular artist and a fiercely lived life.”

Sarah Share will be in attendance. 

The festival’s second offering on Sunday is Another Light on the Road - Robbery Frank and June Leaf’s Canadian Home, screening at 4pm. 

In 2021, celebrated artist June Leaf invited friends and neighbours into her Novia Scotia kitchen to remember her late husband, legendary photographer and filmmaker Robert Frank. As stories unfold, the film reveals how the couple's art was inseparable from the rugged coastal community they called home for five decades. Intimate, warm and deeply human the documentary becomes a meditation on creativity, grief and the sustaining power of storytelling.

The 6pm screening on Sunday is Blues Run The Game: The Strange Tale Of Jackson C Frank.

Directed by Damien O’Connor, this film is described on the festival website as: “A haunting investigation into the life of Jackson C Frank, the gifted yet deeply troubled American songwriter whose lone 1960s album influenced artists from Simon and Garfunkel to Sandy Denny and continues to resonate today. 

“After releasing his masterpiece, Frank vanished into a life marked by trauma, homelessness and tragedy. The film traces his journey - geographical and emotional - seeking the man behind the myth and asking how such luminous music could emerge from such darkness.”

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This will be followed at 8pm by Local Heroes, which celebrates filmmaking rooted in place, language and community. Showcasing work from Donegal, this strand highlights emerging and established voices whose films reflect local experience while resonating far beyond their point of origin. A number of featured filmmakers will be in attendance.

Monday

Monday’s offerings kick off with another Pat Collins film, Song of Granite.

This is described on the festival website as: “an exquisite portrait of Connemara-born sean-nós icon Joe Heaney. Blending dramatic recreation, archival footage and lyrical abstraction, Song of Granite captures both the artistry and enigma of a man shaped by myth, place and song.”

The co-director will be in attendance. 

Monday’s 4pm screening is The Whalebone Box.

The Irish Film Institute says of this film: “The titular box was given to writer Iain Sinclair almost 30 years ago by Steve Dilworth, a sculptor based on the island of Harris. The box is dangerous. What it contains might produce good or bad magic, but, like the box that contained Schrodinger’s Cat, it must never be opened. 

“In 2018 the box was taken on an 800 mile reverse pilgrimage from London back to the Isle of Harris, in the company of the filmmaker Andrew Kötting, the photographer Anonymous Bosch, and Sinclair himself. There was sickness on the island and they hoped the box might help, however they did not know the delirium that they would unleash.”

The final screening of the festival is Armenia, showing at 6pm with director MA Littler in attendance. 

Organisers say: “MA Littler’s Armenia interlaces personal journey, historical reckoning and poetic cinema.

“The day after his fiftieth birthday, singer Haig Boghos embarks on a pilgrimage across continents, from Basel to Cairo, Beirut to Armenia, tracing his family's legacy of genocide, displacement and diaspor. At once intimate and archetypal, the film explores identity, spiritual homelessness and the enduring wounds of history.”

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