This weekend, we’re shining a spotlight on some of the most exciting contemporary voices in European cinema with the CIFF European Film Weekend, a free, three-day celebration at The Arc Cinema, running 6th – 8th February, including a chance to take part in Europe’s biggest audience award by rating the films in the LUX Audience Award.
Don’t miss your chance to be part of our 71st edition this November: submissions are officially open, with an Early Bird Deadline of Friday 27th March. There are also several Festival filims now showing at our Principal Venue Partner The Arc Cinema, and at the Triskel, offering you the chance to discover these brilliant films on the big screen in Cork.
GICIFF EUROPEAN FILM WEEKEND
As the official Irish partner of the LUX Audience Award, CIFF presents the five shortlisted European feature films for 2026, alongside a special programme of short films nominated for European Short Film – Prix Vimeo 2026 at the European Film Awards.
The free programmes runs Friday 6th to Sunday 8th February at The Arc Cinema. Check out a great article by The Echo’s film critic Cara O’Doherty about this weekend’s events.
Already seen one of the nominated films? Have your say by rating the features as part of Europe’s largest audience-driven film award. Vote before 12 April 2026 for the chance to win exciting prizes.
SUBMIT YOUR FILM TO THE 71st CIFF
The 71st CIFF will take place this November in Cork City and County. The Festival welcomes submissions of features and shorts, and all forms of film production, including fiction, documentary, animation, and experimental.
We champion new voices and celebrate excellence in filmmaking throughout our programme and recognise filmmakers’ achievements through our 15 Awards, three of which are Academy Award® qualifying.
Submission Deadlines 2026:
- Friday 27th March – Early Bird Deadline – avail of discounted rates
- Friday 29th May – Regular Deadline
- Friday 31st July – Late Deadline (Features, Feature Documentaries, International Shorts, International Documentary Shorts)
- Friday 7th August – Irish Shorts Late Deadline (Irish Shorts, Irish Documentary Shorts, Cork Shorts, Cork Documentary Shorts)
Before submitting, take a moment to review our terms and conditions.
WHAT’S NEW AT THE GATE SCREEN @ THE ARC
Our Principal Venue Partner, The Arc Cinema Cork, invites audiences to explore the GATE Screen (Screen 6), a space dedicated to bold, independent and international cinema.
Several films from the 70th Cork International Film Festival, including Nouvelle Vague, Blue Moonand My Father’s Shadow, are now showing. If you missed these premieres during our 70th edition last November, this is your chance to catch them on the big screen.
NOUVELLE VAGUE
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After writing for Cahiers du cinéma, a young Jean-Luc Godard decides making films is the best film criticism. Working with filmmaker François Truffaut, he creates Breathless, one of the first features of the Nouvelle Vague era of French cinema.
Read an interview with director Richard Linklater in our Media Partner, the Irish Examiner
BLUE MOON
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1943. Set in real time at the iconic Broadway bar Sardi’s, where lyricist Lorenz Hart has just stormed out of Oklahoma!’s opening night. Hailed a magnificent success for Hart’s former collaborator Richard Rodgers and his new partner Oscar Hammerstein, Hart laments and surmises his life and career.
MY FATHER’S SHADOW
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Two young brothers explore Lagos with their estranged father during the 1993 Nigerian election crisis, witnessing both the city’s magnitude and their father’s daily struggles as political unrest threatens their journey home.
“A rich, heartfelt and rewarding movie” Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
A QUIET LOVE
The award-winning documentary A Quiet Love comes to Triskel Arts Centre, Cork, for four special screenings only, from Sunday 8th to Wednesday 11th February.
This tender and deeply moving film celebrates love in all its forms, sharing the real-life stories of three Deaf couples through Irish Sign Language (with subtitles), including a Deaf boxer and his hearing partner, a same-sex couple navigating parenthood, and a decades-long romance shaped by the Northern Ireland Troubles. View film trailer.
Additional screenings will take place nationwide, including at Omniplex Mahon Point. For dates and venues, visit aquietlove.com/where-to-watch.
LOOK@ME WITH CORK MIGRANT CENTRE
Look@Me is CIFF’s film and education outreach programme, launched in 2022 to empower young people to tell their own stories – and have a fun time doing it – through hands-on filmmaking workshops.
The most recent project, supported by Rethink Ireland’s Impact Fund for Munster, was delivered in collaboration with Cork Migrant Centre. Over six energetic weeks last summer, 50 young people from migrant centres across Cork worked with filmmakers Maximilian Le Cain and Chris Hurley of the Cork Film Centre to dream up and create their own short films.
With the help of the workshop leaders, supported by the brilliant mentors and minders at the Cork Migrant Centre, they learned practical skills in story development, storyboarding, scriptwriting, working with cameras and sound equipment, green screen techniques and the basics of editing as they wrote and shot a series of short films.
The group developed five original short films – Trapped, Mask Off, Stuck in a Loop, Don’t Look Behind You and Reflection – which had their big-screen premiere at the 70th Cork International Film Festival last November (above right). The screening was fully booked and buzzing with excitement, followed by a lively Q&A with young filmmakers Farouk, Amina and Angel alongside workshop leaders Max Le Cain and Chris Hurley.
As one young filmmaker put it: “Filmmaking is a powerful blend of art and collaboration… every choice, from script to sound, shapes the emotional impact. It’s storytelling through sight, sound, and soul.”
We are deeply grateful to Rethink Ireland’s Impact Fund for Munster 2024 for their vital support in making this joyful, creative and confidence-building project possible in partnership with Cork Migrant Centre.
ONE SHOT IRELAND
SHOWREEL SCREENWRITING / PRODUCTION FOR ACTOR DIRECTORS
Join One Shot Ireland for an intensive, practical workshop series designed specifically for actor-filmmakers and screenwriters. Led by filmmaker Mark O’Connor and multi-disciplinary creative Paul Butler Lennox, this course responds directly to what emerging creatives say they actually need.
Focus areas include:
• Screenwriting
• Directing
• Acting for camera
• Showreel scene creation
METAMETAMORPHOSIS
ELINOR O’DONOVAN EXHIBITION
Until 14th March
Cork artist Elinor O’Donovan, whose work spans moving image, installation, and digital collage, presents a new exhibition inspired by Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis and the enduring cultural mythology of The Beatles, at Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh.
Elinor’s previous work includes her debut short film The Immeasurable Grief of the Prawn, which premiered at the 68th CIFF in 2023. Her contemporary artwork Crashers was commissioned by CIFF and Sample-Studios in 2021 for the 66th edition.
