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Barry Ward with Anna Bederke in That The May Face The Rising Sun. Ward: 'My approach to TV and film remains the same, though, in terms of research and preparation' Photo: Conic Adapted from John McGahern’s acclaimed novel of the same name and boasting a sweeping success at this year’s Irish Film and Television Awards, That They May Face The Rising Sun tells a gentle story of a couple who have relocated from London to the Irish countryside. As writer Joe (Barry Ward) rediscovers the rural life of his upbringing, the film ultimately settles on a stoic sentiment about finding peace in the mundane and the cyclical nature of life. Ward’s charisma adds to this stoicism, his warm performance imbuing the film with a quiet sense of ease and melancholia.

The subdued charm of Ward is often a staple of his screen presence, perhaps best put to...

The Emerald Isle has rarely looked greener than it does in That They May Face The Rising Sun. A film built on the repeated turn of the seasons and the idea of leaving and returning, in its rural setting the hillsides glow with the verdancy of high rainfall even in summer, while the colour also provides an accent for everything from woodstain to the ribbon on a wedding cake.

Time moves slower in this late-Seventies world recalled by John McGahern - and adapted for the screen by writer/director Pat Collins and his co-writer Eamon Little - but it passes all the same. “You really are in no hurry,” someone tells Joe Ruttledge (Bary Ward). It’s true, writer Joe has, presumably, returned to Ireland from London some years before precisely because he and his artist wife Kate (Anna Bederke) have had their fill of the rat race. Collins, too,...

In this adaptation of the John McGahern novel, about a middle-aged man who has returned, with his wife, to the countryside of his childhood, makeshift friendships are forged and life’s grand rhythms observed

‘Does anything happen, or is it the usual?” asks a regular loose cannon in Pat Collins’ rural-set Irish drama. “Not much in the way of drama, just the day-to-day stuff,” replies his writer friend. That’s very much the lay of the land in this film, with squirely novelist Joe Ruttledge (Barry Ward) serving as a proxy for John McGahern and his early-Joycean realism, and from whose lauded final 2002 novel this is adapted. By extension it speaks for Collins too, who remains a faithful follower of that approach – almost to a fault.

At some point in the 1980s, Joe and his wife Kate (Anna Bederke) – who is from some unspecified European country – have quit London to...

Picturehouse Entertainment has acquired UK and Ireland rights to Matthias Glasner’s Berlinale Competition Dying from The Match Factory.

The melodrama follows a woman secretly enjoying her husband’s deteriorating health before death knocks on her door as well, causing estranged family members to reconnect.

Corinna Harfouch, Lars Eidinger, Lilith Stangenberg, Ronald Zehrfeld, Robert Gwisdek and Anna Bederke lead the cast.

Dying picked up several prizes in Berlin including the silver bear in best screenplay. It scored a solid 2.8 on Screen’s critics jury grid.

‘Dying’: Berlin Review

The feature is written by Glasner who also produces with Jan Krüger and Ulf Israel.

Unabashedly sporting the most inauspicious of titles, a three-hour running time and a logline that features terminally ill elders and self-destructive descendants, German feature Dying (Sterben) looks like a hard sell on paper. And yet writer-director Matthias Glasner’s crisscrossing family drama manages to be exceedingly funny, often in some of its darkest moments, as well as expectedly sad.

Anchored by a nuanced, detailed performance by Lars Eidinger as Tom, an orchestra conductor juggling all manner of personal and professional commitments, and pitch-perfect turns by Corinna Harfouch, Lilith Stangenberg and Ronald Zehrfeld as the rest of his combustible nuclear family, this richly rewards the time investment it requires. Sure, a few trims here and there wouldn’t have necessarily ruined it, and some might suggest this could work better as a multi-part limited series for upscale TV.

But it’s hard to imagine watching the musical performance set pieces anywhere...

Break Out Pictures and Conic are partnering on UK-Ireland distribution of Pat Collins’ Irish feature That They May Face The Rising Sun.

Break Out Pictures will distribute the film in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland; with Conic releasing the film in England, Scotland and Wales. It will land in cinemas on April 26, 2024 in all territories.

That They May Face The Rising Sun debuted at the BFI London Film Festival in October 2023. It is an adaptation of John McGahern’s acclaimed final novel of the same name. The story follows a couple who return from London to the small...

The Irish festival runs from February 22 to March 2.

Dublin International Film Festival has unveiled its first programme highlights, with French star Isabelle Huppert to receive Diff’s career achievement accolade, the Volta Award, and That They May Face The Rising Sun set to close the festival.

Huppert’s career has spanned six decades, from early roles such as Claude Goretta’s The Lacemaker, for which she received the Bafta most promising newcomer award, to recent cinema roles including Mia Hansen-Love’s Things To Come, Michael Haneke’s Happy End, Neil Jordan’s Greta, Anthony Fabian Mrs Harris Goes To...

What at first appears to be simple good-naturedness pervading Fatih Akin's "Soul Kitchen" starts to seem, as the film rolls on, like something crazier and more generous. The closest I can come to describing it is as a near-spiritual embrace of human failings, their inevitability and the fact that most of us still want to live together in great, messy communities anyway.

For instance: At one point, a character who's responsible for essentially ruining the life of our hero, genial Greek-German slacker Zinos Kazantsakis (Adam Bousdoukos), runs into Zinos' brother Illias (Moritz Bleibtreu, of "Run, Lola, Run") in jail, where Illias has been serving out a sentence for burglary. Instead of punching the guy, which seems, in context, not undeserved, Illias gives him a wink in greeting, and he responds by earnestly asking Illias to tell his brother hello. Illias says he will.

Such is life. And that sloppy,...

• #21. Soul Kitchen Director: Fatih AkinCast: Adam Bousdoukos, Moritz Bleibtreu, Birol Ünel, Anna Bederke, Lucas Gregorowicz, Udo KierDistributor: Rights Available. Buzz: After some dark, dark material, I'm looking forward in seeing how Akin handles the comedy format. Also playing in Venice, this should garner some interest from buyers. The Gist: This is the story of a young restaurant owner Zinos is down on his luck. His girlfriend Nadine has moved to Shanghai, his Soul Kitchen customers are boycotting the new gourmet chef, and he’s having back trouble. Things start looking up when the hip crowd embraces his revamped culinary concept, but that doesn’t mend Zinos’ broken heart. He decides to fly to China for Nadine, leaving the restaurant in the hands of his unreliable ex-con brother Illias. Tiff Schedule: Click here for screening times ...

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