On Monday we attended an excellent illustrated interview with veteran Director Stephen Frears - well known in the Irish context for directing the adaptations of Roddy Doyle's The Snapper and The Van.

Paul King, an up and coming British director who has made the transition from TV to film, had viewed the entire back-catalogue of Frears' work and took us through from My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) to Frears' latest release Cheri, which is showing at Cannes and stars Michelle Pfeiffer

On Sunday we attended one of the IFB's Panel Events in the Irish Pavilion "Death of A Salesman? A debate on the international distribution landscape for independent film".

This was an excellent informative panel ably chaired by Simon Perry (Chief Executive, Irish Film Board), who probed four industry insiders: Nicki Parfitt (co-Managing Director, Goalpost Films), Kathleen Drumm (Head of Sales and Marketing, NZ Films), Dan Griffiths (SVP Trans-Pacific Media Consultants) and Eamonn Bowles (President Magnolia Pictures & Magnet Releasing).

According to the Panel although the economic crisis had made securing funding difficult, it had also had the effect of "cleansing" the industry of poor quality products. Eamonn Bowles was particularly enlightening on the role of Video on Demand in raising revenues prior to theatrical release, on a sliding scale of charges based on proximity of release date.

The Irish Pavilion migrated along The Croisette for the IFB Cannes reception at the Rado Beach. After the deluge of Friday, the weather had picked up and it was a warm and sunny evening as the representatives of the Irish film industry gathered under the tented bar and spilled out on to the beach.

Simon Perry, chief executive of the IFB, spoke about the condition of Irish film production. In spite of economic woes, 2009 will see important new releases by established and up and coming directors. Sounds for the night were created by David Holmes.

Later in the evening we attended the Soho House party at the Chateau of La Napoule, in the presence of Quentin Tarantino and Robin Wright Penn and our very own Aidan Gillen.

Third day in Cannes and the highlight so far has to be last night's screening of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's 1948 classic The Red Shoes. The film was introduced by Martin Scorsese and attended by Ang Lee and Tilda Swinton.
As always some great networking opportunities in the Irish Pavilion and today the sun is shining after much rain the past couple of days.

On Saturday evening at 5.30 pm we will be attending The Irish Film Board's Reception At The Cannes Film Festival networking event at the Rado Plage. Then at 10 pm we head west to the 14th Century Chateau of La Napoule for the Soho House Party - the party of the Cannes fortnight.

We are looking forward to Sunday's screening of Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock and the Irish Film Board's International Film Festivals event.

Dingle Film Festival will be represented in Cannes from the 14th to the 19th of May. If you wish to meet up with us, please contact maurice@dinglefilmfestival.com. The Irish Pavilion is always a good place to meet up.

Dingle Film Festival are delighted with the news that The Arts Council will be funding the festival in 2009. The festival will be funded under the

Small Festivals and Events Scheme 2009

.
The festival is also delighted that it will also be funded again this year by Ealain Na Gaeltachta.