Festival May Be "Wee" But The Craic Is Great!

By Gwen Orel

Ten for the price of one? Just about! If you go to a first run movie and buy popcorn and coke - you're right at twenty dollars.

On Friday, you can see ten shorts at the Wee Craic Festival at 7 pm. Not only that, you'll be done in an hour or so - the after party starts at 8.

And the after party includes music by Colin Devlin, formerly of the Devlins Colin Devlin (formerly of the Devlins), who's just released his gorgeous solo album "Democracy of One."

So you get ten short films and a concert.

The Wee Craic Festival is six months to the day from St. Patrick's Day (September 17th). "It's important to show short films, because nobody else is really doing it. At this time of year there's a lack of Irish film and music that's contemporary and progressive." The Craic Fest in March is 3-4 days, the Wee Craic is just one.

The films are mainly comedies, some animations, and most are by Irish or Irish-Americans filmmakers. Explains Irish-American Terence Mulligan who runs the Wee Craic and the Craic Fests, "The Wee Craic is like a little bit of both six degrees of Irish bacon," (you know, six degrees of Kevin Bacon?). Each film has some type of connection to Ireland - could be the identity of the director, or its theme, or where it was produced. His people are from County Mayo.

Ten award-winning short films, from different festivals, including Galway and Toronto, Sundance and Tribeca are on offer. Three of the films are from local filmmakers - something new.

"We're really the only one doing this on the East Coast, promoting short films and showcasing musicians - short Irish films, tied in with music. Actually we're the only ones in North America," Mulligan says.

Now, short films don't get the kind of general notice that features do - Oscar-winning shorts rarely enter the public consciousness.

But they are a calling card, an audition in a way, for the studios and backers for features.

Says Colin Devlin, "You might see the next Jim Sheridan." Shorts are where people start out, he explains. That might be one reason why actor Liam Neeson is an Honorary Board Member. Mulligan met Neeson at a reception, with Jim Sheridan and actor Aidan Quinn, and Neeson agreed immediately that he'd love to be involved. So a film that was a runner up in a Festival, after being shown at the Wee Craic, could go on to other film festivals and win a "Best" prize.

The full line-up of films will be on the Wee Craic festival site (www.thecraicfest.com), and they vary in topic and style-although most are fast and funny, which, Mulligan explains, does well in New York.

Leo Crowley's Laurie & the Litterbugs won an Honorable Mention at the Galway Film Festival, and is an animated short about a boy who discovers "magical friends" in his back garden. "The animation is strong, the directorial style is great; you can just tell this is a talented filmmaker - which is what we're lookin to promote," says Mulligan.

Bow St. won for Best Documentary in Galway. Tadhg O'Sullivan's film is a portrait of a street filled with "bustling barristers, box-ticking tourists, broke or broken seekers of a free lunch."

Patrick Sullivan's One Lies, the Other Swears is a seven minute short live action film about "two kids driving everybody crazy at a funeral home." Sullivan is a local Irish-American filmmaker, and the film was shot in Brooklyn.

In the audience for the films are both filmmakers and the general public - this is the 11th outing for the Wee Craic, and the 13th for the Craic Festival. While many of those who attend are Irish or Irish-Americans, many who go are just film lovers who want to see the next big thing - which has a good chance of being Irish, according to Mulligan.

"The Irish come from a great line of storytellers," he says. And a short film is a good way to display that storytelling. He remembers a documentary shown in 2008, Undressing My Mother, by Ken Wardrop. "It's an intimate poetic portrait, a five minute documentary, and there was a lyricism to it - just in the way she carried herself. There was an apparent Irishness that no other culture would be able to tell. This kind of documentary is something you wouldn't see at other festivals.

Colin Devlin agrees. "We obviously have a huge history - for such a small country, the amount of people working and creating on the international stage is astounding. There's a uniqueness that comes from depth of story, that Irish filmmakers can bring. A movie like Once that won the Oscar, it's like a fairytale. The depth and emotion is there, that people gravitate towards."

In the Wee Craic Fest, most of the short films are lighthearted, and contemporary, not retrospective about the Irish past. "What works for us is to try to keep it a light, fun festival, with music afterwards. And we do try to include more animation comedy."

Interestingly, Irish animation is increasingly earning acclaim. "It has a lot to do with the colleges, education programs, money from the film board, initiative and schemes." In the US, money can be very hard to come by, but the Irish film board is "proactive in promoting and funding the next short films."

Mulligan started himself as an actor, and has done voiceover work on films. He knows firsthand how short films can jumpstart a career. While there is a small committee deciding on the music and film who screen the films under consideration, Mulligan does a lot of legwork himself. He was in Dublin in September for the Electric Picnic Festival, and going to the Toronto Film Festival in September. "You have to do the legwork, keep digging, go to Festivals, talk to programmers," he says. He's on the road every other month. He also gets emails from Festivals that know about him now, including Sundance and Galway, to give him a heads up. Taking place in September, this Festival doesn't compete with many of the major Festivals.

It was at Sundance where Mulligan saw Colin Devlin this year. He was playing at an ASCAP showcase, and "his new songs just blew me away. I called him up, and we're flying him in from LA." This is Devlin''s only appearance in New York, and his first in a few years.

Devlin laughs, "he's very insistent! I'm afraid to say no! I have no idea what it's going to be like, but I'm looking forward to it." He's a big fan of film, and in LA has had more and more opportunity to become involved with film.

Even if you don't think you know music by the Devlins you probably do - a lot of his music has been used over the years in film and television, which is one reason his music has been described as "cinematic rock." Some of the shows that have used his songs include HBO's "Six Feet Under" ("Waiting"), "Rescue Me" on FX ("Love Is Blindness"). The movie Closer used his song "World Outside."

Originally from Northern Ireland, Devlin's family moved to Dublin in 1980 to avoid the troubles. A few years later he realized he wanted to be in music, and "write for my age." His inspirations are Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty-people who "really and truly are themselves, anybody of any age can relate to that." None of those influences are Irish - but his music is somehow unmistakeably so. "There's a longing and melancholy in Irish music that's just there in the voices, even in Indy rock, it's very Irish."

Devlin has just begun doing some work on short, original soundtracks for short movies. "I'm enjoying the process, which is a new thing for me," he says. "It's more about writing cues, than writing songs, but it's in a very organic way." One of the scores he just finished is for "an amazing science fiction short called Protocol, and they're hoping to get it into Canne for next year."

"You do put your own soundtrack to your life," he says. "For me, if I hear a song, it's a much stronger memory than a photograph or an image. I can remember exactly where I was, get a feeling for it... it means everything to me. A painter looking at a sky, where we see a sky, he sees ten different colors; it's like that."

And a film that blends music and image creates an impression as deep as a memory.

Which is why pairing Colin Devlin with the Wee Craic might seem odd but makes perfect sense - and should be a great night, at any price.