Docs down by the docks
“Yeah, me too.”
So, it wasn’t just me.
While idling on the landing that was also the entrance to Screen 2 at the Pálás, I had mentioned to the Galway Film Fleadh volunteer that nearly every movie I was seeing at the festival was a documentary. She confirmed that her experience was the same, and weren’t a lot of these documentaries great.
I was a few days into the festival before it actually dawned on me that I hadn’t seen a film that wasn’t a documentary. In fact, I saw only one non-documentary during the whole thing. That was Nathalie Álvarez Mesén’s impressive feature, Clara Sola from Costa Rica.
Otherwise, I was seeing non-fiction. The docs ranged from the very personal (Daniela de Felice’s Ardenza) to interesting profiles of artists (Eva Vitija’s Loving Highsmith, Mark Cousins’s The Storms of Jeremy Thomas) to insider stories about the movie business (Jeffrey Schwarz’s Boulevard! A Hollywood Story, Raphael Sbarge’s Only in Theaters) to learning about an under-the-radar environmental movement advocating nuclear power (Frankie Fenton’s Atomic Hope) and getting a street-level acquaintance with the colorful and musical neighborhoods of Dublin’s north inner city (Luke McManus’s North Circular).
To be sure, the Galway Film Fleadh did not convert itself into a documentary film festival. There were plenty of feature films, including the opening night premiere of Emer Reynolds’s filmed-in-County-Kerry Joyride starring Olivia Coleman. I would have loved to have seen that, but it’s been years since I’ve been able to get into the opening night film. Somewhere along the line, I slipped off the A list.
The truth is that I’ve kind of been avoiding the Town Hall Theatre during the Fleadh for a while. The Pálás, down by the Spanish Arch in the heart of the city, is more comfortable and more relaxed.
I remember years ago (I think it was fifteen years ago when Nicolas Roeg came to present what would turn out to be his last feature film, Puffball) when I happened to be sitting next to a guy who has a shop in the Spanish Arch area and we got to chatting about the long-planned and long-delayed arthouse cinema that was supposed to be built down there on Merchants Road near the docks. Soon, we said optimistically, we’ll be attending Fleadh films there. The project had been commissioned two years earlier by the charity Sólás with 8.4 million euro of state funding, and it was designed by architect Tom de Paor. Fourteen years of terminated contracts, changing clients and funding shortfalls followed. At times it seemed that the thing would never be finished, but it finally opened in 2018. We did indeed finally attend Fleadh screenings there—for a couple of years until Covid shut it down. Now it’s open again, and this year’s Fleadh was once again all in-cinema and all in-person.
The Pálás, which is also home to the Galway Film Society, is a quirky building. It’s like a bunch of concrete blocks randomly piled on top of each other. Inside, it’s a maze of narrow stairways going down and going up. The main screen is in the basement. The smallest of the three screens is in the attic. There’s also a restaurant and bar in the place.
After a three-year gap, I was ready for the new modern age in the Pálás. I had my tickets on my phone ready for the bar code to be scanned. I had even learned to turn the screen brightness up so the scanner could read it easily. Except that that there was no scanner. The volunteer simply asked my name, looked it up on her own phone, and waved me in. Cool. It was like being on the VIP list. Almost makes up for not being able to get an opening night ticket. Part of the Pálás’s charm is that they still don’t seem to have their technical systems all worked out. You can buy your tickets at home online, but when you get there, it’s all very analog.
I wondered if it would be the same at the Town Hall. No scanner there either. The first volunteer just glanced at my phone screen to see if it looked like a proper ticket. The second volunteer had a glance too and pointed me toward my seat.
One drawback of avoiding the Town Hall is that it results in me not seeing any of the films that win the awards. Winner of Best Irish Film was Robert Higgins’s and Patrick McGivney’s Lakelands. Best Irish First Feature was Michael Kinirons’s The Sparrow. Nothing Compares (about Sinéad O’Connor) won Best Irish Documentary. Among the other awards: Malachi Smyth’s The Score for Best International Film and Lila Schmitz’s The Job of Songs for Best International Documentary.
Maybe none of the fine documentaries I saw at the Pálás won awards, but they were certainly deserving of them. And where else can you be treated to live Irish traditional music while waiting for the screening to begin?
Now that makes you feel like a king or queen in your palace.
-S.L., 12 July 2022
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