A very warm welcome to this year’s Corona Cork Film Festival. This year we have a very stimulating and exciting schedule of film features, short films and documentaries awaiting your viewing. We are especially focusing on emerging filmmakers with our Young Filmmaker Development Programme, and I would encourage all first-time attendees to embrace and enjoy the eight days of film.

We are also delighted to welcome Kathryn Bolkovac, whose real life experiences are the subject of the Irish Premiere of The Whistleblower, a film which was the standout feature at the Toronto Film Festival.

Another matter of great significance is the return this year of the Festival Programme to Triskel at the newly and wonderfully refurbished Christchurch and I would urge every patron of the festival to visit it at least once during the Festival.

I will not detain you from what I hope will be an exciting browse through the programme but I must first gratefully acknowledge the support of The Arts Council, Cork City Council, Fáilte Ireland, MEDIA, Culture Ireland, and Screen Training Ireland during these fiscally difficult times.

A special thanks also to Michael Barry and Corona for the continued sponsorship of the Festival.

Thank you also to our core staff led by Mick Hannigan, to the Board of the Festival, to our volunteers and seasonal staff. Thanks finally to you: the patrons and the festival-goers, whose presence make the year’s efforts worthwhile to everyone involved.

Michael O’Connell, Festival Chairman