In the first event of its kind, the Penn State Irish Society, a student group on campus, will host the Irish Film & Cultural Festival on Saturday, March 26 at The State Theatre. The theme is "Music & Myth," and the day's events will feature four Irish film screenings, children's activities, literary readings, and traditional Irish music and dance. Ticket prices for students and seniors are $6 per film and $12 for a festival pass; for adults, tickets are $8 per film and $15 for a festival pass. Children 12 and under will be admitted for free into the festival's first film, The Secret of Roan Inish. Kildare's Irish Pub is exclusively sponsoring the festival and will donate a portion of box office and fundraising proceeds to the Penn State English Department and School of Music in support of scholarships and programs to study Irish! music, literature and culture.
The movies will be screened in the main theatre, while The State Theatre's upstairs studio will be transformed into a traditional Irish pub atmosphere, with free entertainment ongoing throughout the day. Kildare's will serve Irish pub fare, and The State Theatre will be importing specialty Irish brews for the occasion. Kildare's Irish Pub also will host Irish-themed events and offer specials throughout the day to benefit the cause.
The slate of films reflects the festival theme: "The Secret of Roan Inish," showing at 1 p.m., treats the Celtic Fringe myth of the selkies, human-seal changelings, in a lovely film for children and adults alike. Following at 4 p.m., "Ondine," a 2010 film directed by acclaimed Irish director Neil Jordan and starring Colin Farrell, brings the selkie myth into a contemporary Irish context. "Once," the beloved 2006 film hailed as a modern-day musical, shows at 7 p.m. Set in contemporary Dublin, "Once" follows the lives of a discouraged Irish busker and a young Eastern European immigrant as they spend the week together composing and recording music that tells their love story. "The Commitments" closes out the festival at 9:30 p.m. Set in the late 1980s in a working class Dublin suburb, this rollicking film based on popular Irish writer Roddy Doyle's first novel chronicles the attempts of a motley group of young people to start a soul band.
The Penn State Irish Society will help to coordinate the day's events along with their faculty adviser's English 145 Modern Irish Literature class. O'Hara's class will be handling publicity, booking the day's cultural events, creating websites to introduce the films, and hosting discussion sessions after each film. For more information about the Irish Film & Cultural Festival, visit http://irishfilmandculturalfestival.blogspot.com/.