French cultural events taking place in Ireland in March 2017

Le Mois de la Francophonie takes place in venues around Ireland during the month of March 2017. Full details are available on their website: http://www.ambafrance-ie.org/The-Month-of-La-Francophonie-in-Ireland-2017-Programme

The 28th Cork French Film Festival will take place in Cork from Sunday 5th to Sunday 12th of March 2017. See their website for more information: http://corkfrenchfilmfestival.com/

The Franco-Irish Literary Festival will take place in various venues in Dublin from 30 March - 2 April 2017. 'Style & Stylistics' is the 2017 theme. Full details are available on their website: http://www.francoirishliteraryfestival.com/

The March Newsletter of the French Embassy's Cultural Service lists many other events taking place in Ireland in March.

59th Cork Film Festival - documentary film: 'Séamus Murphy: A Quiet Revolution'

The 59th Cork Film Festival has just started. It runs from the 7th to the 16th of November 2014. I have already attended two screenings and I'd like to write about one of them here.

The title of the documentary film that I saw this morning was: "Séamus Murphy: A Quiet Revolution". It told the story of Cork born sculptor and stone carver Séamus Murphy RHA (1907-1975). The Irish writer and academic, Daniel Corkery was one of Murphy's teachers in school and it was Corkery who gave Murphy his first drawing lessons.

Murphy studied modeling at the Crawford Municipal School Art in Cork on Corkery's advice. He later attended night classes there and won a Gibson Bequest scholarship in 1931. With this scholarship, Murphy went to Paris in 1932-33, but doesn't seem to have enjoyed his time there. According to the documentary, Murphy found that his fellow artists in Paris were more interested in discussing art rather than actually making it.

Crawford Municipal School of Art, Cork (now Crawford Art Gallery), where Séamus Murphy learnt his trade.

Séamus Murphy's work can be seen all over Cork and throughout Ireland. He exhibited at the New York World's Fair in 1939 and was elected as a member of the RHA in 1954. He was commissioned to do sculptures in churches and he also created busts of politicians. However, he also had to do 'ordinary' work to earn a living. He created headstones for graves and this work can be seen in graveyards all over Cork. A list of his major works can be viewed here and a biography can be viewed here.

Bust of Michael Collins by Séamus Murphy in Fitzgerald's Park, Cork.

Watching the documentary, I was reminded of the brilliant RTÉ television series 'Hands', which looked at different traditional Irish crafts. I just want to say well done to the filmmaker for creating such an interesting film about a person I had not heard of before and well done to the Cork Film Festival for showing it.

French film director Agnès Varda in UCC

The French film director Agnès Varda visited University College Cork (UCC) today Monday 7 March 2011. She spoke to over 100 of the university's staff and students for about an hour and a half about her life and her movies.

The annual Cork French Film Festival is taking place at the moment and many of Varda's famous films are among the main attractions of the festival. When people hear her name, they instantly associate her with the Nouvelle Vague movement in cinema. She said that she was pleased to have been invited to Cork where three different areas of her work were being recognised: her work as a visual artist, a filmmaker and a photographer. "I don't want to represent French cinema, I want to represent myself", said Varda at the beginning of her talk.

She spoke about her introduction into the whole movie making business. The French theatre and film actor, Jean Vilar, had asked her to take some photographs on a movie set. This work with the camera inspired her and she went on to make her own movie, La Pointe Courte (1954). I've seen this and really liked it. It's a black and white film, set in a French fishing town and follows the lives and loves of some of the locals. It was filmed in Sète on the Mediterranean coast and looks lovely. She said it was very very hot during filming and that it was all done along co-operative lines - everyone was equal and they only had very basic facilities.

Varda mentioned Michel de Montaigne's essays as an inspiration to her in her work. She said that Montaigne created his essays in order to be remembered and that she is doing her film work so that she will be remembered and also that her family will know her. Another inspiration for Varda seems to be paintings. Firstly, she mentioned Rembrandt, who did a lot of self portraits, but she didn't think he was so much painting himself because he loved himself, but he painted himself because he wanted to be remembered and also to show the changes in his appearance over the years.

Another one of Varda's early films - Cléo de 5 à 7 (1962), tells the story of a beautiful young singer who fears death by cancer. Varda said that for this film she was inspired by a famous painting showing a blond nude woman surrounded by a skelatal figure (death). I didn't catch the name of the artist, but she said that his paintings are on show in Munich and Vienna.

A couple of years ago I saw Varda's film Daguerreotypes (1976) where she introduces the audience to the inhabitants of the rue Daguerre, where she lives in Paris. I liked the film.

It was very interesting to hear this legend speaking about herself and her work and I am happy that I went along to hear her.