Social Pictures: Dublin International Film Festival 2023 programme launch

On Tuesday 7 February, Dublin International Film Festival (DIFF) launched their 2023 programme at the Light House Cinema, Dublin.

Celebrating 21 years over a ten day extravaganza of cinema, DIFF are giving us an opportunity to see the very best of world cinema and film talent in Dublin.

Ireland’s premier film event returns to the capital from February 23 to March 4 with a packed programme launched by Festival Director Gra?inne Humphreys. Across the ten days, DIFF will welcome a host of onscreen talents including this year’s Volta awardee is Emily Watson, Paul Mescal, Jane Seymour, and Aidan Gillen alongside filmmakers and creatives Jim Sheridan, Artavazd Peleshyan and Robbie Ryan to mention but a few.

Festival director Gra?inne Humphreys said, “Since the start, Dublin International Film Festival has been an audience festival and a product of the environment it lives and breathes in and the community it is built on. Part of our job is to explore and reflect where that city and community is today. As our city and our film community has changed over recent years, we felt it was also important that we change as a festival. Previous iterations have had a title sponsor, and we’ve always been incredibly grateful to them for their partnerships and support which have helped the festival become what it is.

“But now, for the first time, we felt it was important to work with a broader community of supporters, industry partners, artists and film-makers, and to reimagine what Dublin International Film Festival could be. I am particularly delighted to premiere the superb line up of new Irish films and show these new works alongside their international counterparts. It’s a festival programme which I am extremely proud of, packed with discoveries and gems. I’m thankful as ever to all our partners and friends for their support in helping us to realise a physical festival and to my colleagues for their commitment to making this the best festival possible.”

Following the international success of 2022’s Oscar nominated opening Irish film An Cailín Ciúin, the festival are thrilled to present this year’s opener the hugely anticipated Irish feature God’s Creatures and look forward to welcoming the luminous Emily Watson and our own hugely talented Oscar nominee Paul Mescal to Dublin for the Gala Screening.

The Festival is also delighted to celebrate the life and work of the iconic Jane Seymour, in conversation with Rick O’Shea. Other highly anticipated events include The Lord Mayor’s Gala presentation of Robert Connolly’s striking coming-of-age tale Blueback and Daniel Goldhaber’s Toronto Film Festival smash How to Blow Up A Pipeline.

Meanwhile, some of Ireland’s most exciting filmmakers cast their lens to stories of interesting Irish lives, from Teresa Lavina’s touching and colourful account of Traveller life, Mincéir; to Cara Holmes’ Notes From Sheepland about artist and sheep farmer Orla Barry; the community who live in the darkest place in Ireland in Field’s of Darkness; Accidental Anthropologist featuring real footage of Cork and Kerry in from the 1920s; and Jim Sheridan’s biography of screen icon Peter O’Toole: Along the Sky Road to Aqaba.

To see more social photos from the Dublin International Film Festival 2023 programme launch, browse through the gallery below…

Photography by Brian McEvoy.