The Iris Prize Festival, the world’s largest LGBT-themed short film prize, has kicked off in Cardiff, and we’re going to be reporting from the event which runs October 10th-14th. The festival shows a mix of shorts and feature films, ending with the Iris Prize, where one lucky filmmaker is given funding and support for their next short film.
The first night opened with reminiscing screening of last year’s winning short, I Don’t Want To Go Back Alone. The Iris Prize team has promised to ‘step it up a notch’ this year, and they seem bent on delivering just that.
The Iris Prize Festival is now in its sixth year, and the two films opening the festival show just how far gay and lesbian film-making has come in a short space of time. Daniel Ribeiro’s critically acclaimed short was followed by Yossi, the highly anticipated follow up to Eytan Fox’s Yossi and Jagger. One of the film’s stars, Oz Zehavi, was there to open the screening and shed some light into the film industry in Israel.
With the caliber of films shown on the first night, the excitement began to buzz. In lavish surroundings the crowd was treated to the premiere rendition of ‘Iris’, a piece composed by Bernard Kaye especially for the festival.
The night ended with cocktails and Lady Gaga covers by a string quartet. Gauging the atmosphere and conversation from the night, it seems everyone is looking forward to getting stuck into four more days of great films.
We’ll be bringing you more reviews and coverage of the festival over the next few days.
For more info on the shorts screening and in contention for this year’s prize, click here.
Writer: Adrian Naik
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