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On Sunday 23rd April we celebrated the end of our second season and the final screening of our first year. And what a year! Maretta Dillon of access>CINEMA attended as a guest and following the screening said she thoroughly enjoyed the experience. We screened two Oscar winning films - Life is Beautiful and the Irish winning film - Six Shooter.
What started off last August 2005 as a small idea which grew into a reality, thanks to the great work of all involved- those who helped set up and convert the Parochial Hall every Sunday night to those who attended and enjoyed the films. The support of the Local Businesses was invaluable. The advice and help of Alice, Yvonne and Maretta in access>CINEMA was tremendous. Melanie Scott, North Tipperary Arts Officer was greatly appreciated.
We started off the year with little more than enthusiasm - little or no equipment and no notion as to how to go about setting up the whole show. But while climbing a VERY steep learning curve we achieved great things. A worry for us every Sunday was - would anybody turn up! But, without fail, every Sunday you all did in greater numbers than we could have imagined. It was not only the people of Cloughjordan, but Birr, Nenagh, Portroe, Ballingarry, Shinrone, Roscrea and Puckane. A number of Dubliners and other visitors to the village enjoyed the films while visiting friends in Cloughjordan.
When we first set up the hall, we had only hard, uncomfortable parish hall seats - we now have the former Irish Film Centre comfy cinema seats! A huge effort went into installing them - long hours and cold nights fitting them. Brendan deserves special mention here for all his work. Declan, David, Joe and Donald all helped out with the work with driving trailers etc. A sincere thanks to Liam of Midnight Court Film Society, Scarrif, Co Clare for his help and advice and lending Cloughjordan Cineclub the magnificent large screen, which added greatly to the cinematic experience. Without Ken's expertise we would not have enjoyed the great sound during the films. He dismantled his sound system every week and set it up in the hall without fail every week. The projector thankfully held out for the year. Thanks to my three boys, Cianán(6 years old), Ruadhán (4 years old) and Hugo (2 years old) for the loan of their DVD player every week also!
We screened 20 films since last August, including a short Junior Film Season over Christmas which was kindly sponsored by North Tipperary V.E.C. Over 559 people attended the screenings. The website has attracted more than 920 hits. The brochures, all 1,500 of them were widely distributed. We received great publicity from The Nenagh Guardian, The Midland Tribune and TippFM especially The Arts Show with Denis O'Sullivan.
We screened films from all over the world - Argentina, Hungary, Spain, USA, UK, Mongolia, Germany, France, Italy, Korea, Israel, New Zealand amongst others. The Irish Short Films we screened every evening before the feature film were really enjoyed by everybody!
We received good news during the week from the Art's Office in Tipperary County Council - some further funding to keep the club on the road. There may be some even better news later this month regarding equipment.... we'll keep you posted.
During the year we had a number of social events - wine and cheese receptions and many evenings in the local pubs after screenings. Thanks to all who prepared food and helped with the tidying and cleaning.
We are screening one more big event on the 24th May - as part of the Bealtaine Festival. Read about it here. We may screen one or two other films during the Summer.
In the meantime, we are taking a well deserved break. Thank you all for your support and we look forward to seeing you all in September.
Colm
Email us: cloughjordancineclub@eircom.net
The Films
Our Launch night 27th August 2005
The
Station Agent
CLICK ON IMAGE for further information
Brendan working on the seating
SIX SHOOTER-
one of the many "shorts" we screened
starring Brendan Gleeson and Ruadhrí Conroy
A bit of catching up to do with the news here. We've submitted our grant application to North Tipperary Arts Office last month and hope to have good news soon. Ken and I attended a great weekend in Ennis, Co. Clare for a screening session where we got to view over17 films.
The films were screened in Glór Music Centre and the fabulous CineMobile - an Articulated truck with a 100 seater 35mm cinema trailer!
There were over 80 delegates from all over the country there representing about 40 other film/cine clubs and societies. It was great to meet all of them and learn from their experiences and how they organise and fund their clubs. All were very generous with their time and advice... needless to say there was a social aspect to the weekend as well... and a very enjoyable cinematic table quiz. I was thinking that this might be a great idea for our own club as a social event... more about that later! A sincere thanks to Alice, Yvonne and Maretta from AccessCinema for the great weekend.
Looking forward to the screening of Bombón El Perro. This is the second last screening of the current season. Could we ask that all members bring a friend and lets get the numbers up!
Talk soon
Colm
Bombón El-Perro next Sunday 9th of April
click
on image for more info
We had a really great turn out at last week's film. A full house in fact! Next week we're screening the hilarious "Only Human" - Meet the Fockers in Spanish!
Heard on The Ray D'Arcy show that one of his favourite films was Life is Beautiful which we are screening on the 23rd April, so we've invited the whole show down. Don't know if they'll come or not but who knows!
Can I ask that all members bring a mate this week.... we need to get the audience figures up!
Colm
We have the funkiest cinema this side of Lough Derg! The parochial hall is looking great with the new seating in!
We proudly present the critically acclaimed
The Story Of the Weeping Camel
There is a disarming charm to this virtually wordless drama from the distant
wilds of Mongolia. Guaranteed to be unlike anything that you've ever seen
before, it’s a tale of two coexisting species, camels and humans, and it is
fascinating, funny and emotionally engaging. At the end of the birthing
season, an extended family of nomadic shepherds in the Gobi Desert gathers
to help the last female camel give birth. It's a difficult delivery, and she
rejects the white calf, leaving it helpless and hungry. The shepherds try
everything to get the mother to reunite with her offspring, eventually
sending two young boys on a long camel ride to a distant village to bring a
musician to play for the mother camel and coax her to embrace her baby. The
premise is simple, but the film resonates with an astonishing complexity.
There is little dialogue and the two main characters are camels! But these
animals have hugely expressive faces, and their interaction with each other
and their human hosts is actually very meaningful.
JPGS Winner - Audience Award / Karlovy Vary Film Festival 2004
Enjoy the film in our cinema complete with comfortable full size cinema
seats, a 4m X 5m screen and fantastic sound.
The Cineclub would ask that every member bring a friend for half price (€3).
Admission is open to all - €6
The Cineclub would like to thank all those who worked late into the night
these past few weeks collecting and installing the fantastic cinema seating.
The Shorts Season continues this week where we will screen an Irish Short
before the main screening!
As some of you are aware, the Cloughjordan Drama Group are having a very successful run with "Big Maggie"... so much so that they announced an extra performance this coming Sunday. We are ever adaptable if nothing else in the Cineclub and we are screening on Saturday25th instead to facilitate this.
The cinema seating is being appreciated by many who attended the play. it could act as a great crowd puller for us! Declan, Donald and I headed off for Scarriff with cattle trailers in tow and collected about another 60 seats. Many thanks to Victor for the loan of the Land-rover and cattle trailer. Declan had his own trailer in tow. Thankfully Declan also had some serious portable lighting which made the job of loading the seats from their storage area much easier. Joe, Brendan and Peter all helped when the Convoy arrived back in Cloughjordan. We then retired to the Corner House to discuss the evening's work!
We hope to have another row or two of seats in place for Saturday. I have some photos which I will post later today.
We are working on our Art's application at the moment. More about that later. Ken and I will be heading to Ennis at the end of March for the 2006 viewing session with many other film societies and clubs etc... a weekend to familiarise ourselves with current films and hopefully help us short list films for the coming year. Tough job but somebody has to do it!
See you all Saturday -
Colm
By the way the Drama Group's performance of Big Maggie is superb! If you haven't already gone to see it - get there early on Sunday. Curtains up at 8:30 but you'll need to be there at least 8:00pm if not earlier to be in with a chance of gaining admission.
GREAT NEWS!
The cinema seats arrived at last!
Last Sunday saw the arrival and installation of the first of the cinema style seating.
A note regarding next screening. We will be screening "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring" next Sunday the 5th February. There will be a short break in the schedule then until the 26th February as the hall is being used to stage Cloughjordan Drama Group's production of "Big Maggie"
See you all next Sunday @ 8:00pm
Colm
A sincere thanks to Declan, Joe and Brendan who all helped collect, assemble and install the seats in the hall.
Happy New Year to you all.
We have a great line up of films for the Spring Season with an increase in the number of screenings showing eight films between January and April. Programmes and brochures are available in many locations around the village as well as in Nenagh, Roscrea, Ballingarry and Birr. Check out Spring 2006 Season
First film of the season is Sideways on Sunday 15th January @ 8:00pm
The theatre/cinema seats are away at the moment being adapted for use and should be available shortly. I am afraid to mention a date but rest assured their arrival in the actual hall will be greeted with a great fanfare! They are a lot closer to being used now than they were last year in any case!! We'll be heading off next week to collect some more seats. Any volunteers??? Email us if you can help.
All the best, we'll see you all on Sunday
We hope you all had a great Christmas. The Junior Film Season was a great success with over 60 people attending the films. We are preparing the brochure for the Spring 2006 season at the moment. The brochure will be available in all the shops, businesses and pubs in the village hopefully at the beginning of next week. The long awaited theatre seats are in storage in Cloughjordan and we are working out how best to use them. There are a total of 120 seats.
Wishing you all a very Happy New Year
The Crew
A lot of news to catch up on! We launched the club in August (click here to read about it)
The Cineclub has just finished its first season, screening 6 films from September to December, when we launched with The Motorcycle Diaries and finished last week with The Chorus. The accumulated audience figures was 220. We have an increased season prepared for Spring 2006 screening 8 films (click here for details). The year finished with a fantastic mulled wine, mince pie and savouries and cheese reception which we had before the the screening. Thanks to Jessica and Siobhán for preparing and organising the wonderful food. Thanks to all the public houses who kindly lent us wine glasses. And especially thanks to all of you who turned out.
Two important bits of news, one not so good and one great! The bad news is that due to a clerical error in the Tipperary VEC, we received the incorrect letter and we are unfortunately not receiving a grant from them to the value of €5,000. I called into the offices and managed to secure the cost of rental of the films for the Junior Film Season.... so the younger audience of Cloughjordan need not fear that The Grinch has stolen their Christmas Film Season!
The great news is that 21 one of the cinema seats are now in storage in Cloughjordan. Many thanks to Declan and Joe for coming to Scarriff with me to collect them. We will organise another sortie to Scarriff soon. Anybody who can offer help or trailers etc please contact the club (email here). We need to figure out what we can do to fully utilise this fantastic resource. There are in total about 160 seats. Would it be too much to imagine that we can fit out one of the 6 (yes six!!!) halls in Cloughjordan as a fully functioning performance space for the various groups in the village... the drama society, the two national schools, the cineclub and perhaps have visiting groups and musicians use the hall during the year? Let us hear what you think.
We look forward to seeing you all over the Christmas period at the the Junior Film Season. The films are suitable for the all the family. We would ask that all children be accompanied. Thanks to Josie and Tom of The Clough Inn who have donated refreshments for the young audience. Will the other public houses join in?
We take this opportunity to thank all of our audience and sponsors and wish you all a very Happy Peaceful Christmas and a Prosperous New Year.
Nollaig Shona Daoibh go léir
The Crew
An exciting week... We received news that we have been successful in our application for National Lottery Funding... HURRAY!!!! This allows us purchase much needed equipment which to date we have been borrowing. We are very grateful Midnight Court Film Society in Scarriff, Co Clare for lending us their screen. We hope to be able to purchase a similar sized one soon but perhaps having a screen on a roller system so that it can be set up much quicker. At the moment the screen have takes the two of us about half an hour to put in place. We hope to purchase a new projector also. We have been using a borrowed one to date. The Mitsubishi projector we have been using to date is 1100 lumens (the clarity and brightness of the image) We hope to purchase a 2500 lumens projector which will greatly enhance the picture quality! Ken is going to look into purchasing some sound equipment. The Cineclub is deeply indebted to Ken for his generosity in giving his own personal sound equipment every fortnight to the club! One less job to do every weekend - dismantling his sound system from his sitting room!!
The long awaited seating is nearing Cloughjordan! This Thursday we are arranging the collection of the seating. It is in need of a bit of a clean and once we have the seating in Cloughjordan we will relying on the engineering skills of members to arrange some way in which we can utilise it, bearing in mind that the Hall is used for many other purposes - yoga, senior citizens club, drama society and school concerts.
The funding we have secured allows us to run a Junior Film season for the younger Cloughjordanites! We hope to run a short film season (three films) during the Christmas break. The dates are not yet finalised, but all children in the four schools in the parish will be notified through the schools.
Thanks again for all the support. Keep in touch... email us, if even to let us know that you have read the news!
The Crew
24th October 2005
I've not had much time recently to update the news, but I can safely say that Cloughjordan Cineclub is here to stay. The audience figures are on the up each week, with new members enjoying the films. The Motorcycle Diaries was enjoyed by the 45 who attended. Kontroll was very well attended and there was an added sense of authenticity with the Hungarian contingency from Roscrea who watched the film. It turned out that a friend of theirs' had a role in the film.
Last night we had a great attendance with 47 coming along to enjoy Dear Frankie with many new members joining and bringing friends along. I don't think there was a dry eye in the house at the end of the film. Word is obviously spreading about the club. The Club enjoyed the follow up in Maura Grace's Bar. It is our intention to suggest a pub where the members can meet after the film to make new friends, discuss the film and round off the night as it were and it is the Club's way of supporting the local businesses who helped the club get off the ground.
Next film is A Very Long Engagement which will be screened on the 6th of November @ 8:00pm. If any f you have ideas or suggestions as to where you would like to see the club go in the future do not hesitate to contact us here [email]
Looking forward to seeing you all on the 6th November!
The Crew!
18th September
We're getting ready now to launch the season proper, starting with The Motorcycle Diaries, which will be shown next Sunday 25th September @ 8:00pm. We received great news from Tipperary North County Council Arts Office. Melanie Scott has informed us that we are to receive a grant towards the film rental cost. Thank you Melanie!
The website continues to be visited by people from all over... latest hits have been from Greece(!) and Germany as well as many from Ireland. Keep spreading the news! We met with Patrick Bergin who wished us every success and he and his wife Paula have joined the club and are sponsoring a film. Many thanks to you both!
Looking forward to seeing you all next Sunday. Tell all your friends. Again if anybody reads this email us!! Feel free to BYOB on Sunday!
10th September
I've not had much time to update this news... I'm back at the day job. The website has had over 301 hits... I have found hits from Washington, California, Georgia in the USA, Manchester, London and Southampton in the UK, a few hits from Sweden and many from all over Ireland including Limerick, Cork, Clare and Dublin. We are going to work on trying to make the website more interactive in the future. Ken and I are getting ready now for the start of the season proper which starts on the 25th of the month. It was a great experience to have the launch and see the cinema in action and how well it worked.
A few bits of news... we're still working on the "real" cinema seating. It may not be in place as soon as we hoped but all going well it should be in place before the end of the season. A few other developments are in the offing but nothing confirmed yet. Still waiting on replies from a few organisations we've applied to for grants etc. The season tickets are going well. Looking forward to seeing you all on the 25th.
I often wonder if anybody reads this... if you have just send an email!
Thanks again for all the support!
The Crew
23rd August 2005
PHEW!
Well we managed it. Showed the movie (The Station Agent), had the wine reception and had the North Tipperary Arts Officer, Melanie Scott launch the evening. TippFM are interviewing me tonight for their Arts Show. The Nenagh Guardian had a piece on the launch but unfortunately had September 21st down instead of August 21st so the turn out might explain that. That said, 21 paying guests as well as the crew of 5 and Melanie was a respectable turn out. The hall was nicely full. We had it “cinematised” - posters of forthcoming films, flyers, blurb on each film and lanterns giving a nice feel to the hall. The local shop gave the wine at a discounted price and the local restaurant gave us buffet, finger food and refused payment!
We had a little shock mind you at 7:10pm when I was doing one last little run through. I had prepared a few powerpoint intro slides (I can send them if you have powerpoint) and was just making sure that the change over from laptop to DVD player went smoothly when “BANG!” Every thing went black! Emergency lights lit! A power cut in the whole village! I thought at first I had blown a fuse in the hall but luckily it was the whole village! The ESB had been informed earlier of sparking overhead wires. Some of the guests/punters had arrived but thankfully we had wine for them and some night lights and candles added to the atmosphere. All took it in good humour. A cheer went up twenty minutes later as the power was restored. Glasses were topped up and the show went off really well. People were really happy and praised the whole set up saying it was more than they expected. Some had anticipated sitting watching a TV and video! Some of those who attended had travelled from other villages having read about it the paper. We sold five season tickets and all who attended said they’d come back with friends for the season proper in September. The night ended with a good few pints in the local! It was really worth having the trial run/launch. The sound and picture quality was excellent. All enjoyed the specially made cloughjordan labelled popcorn !
Thanks to all of you for you help and we look forward to seeing you all in September for the first film - The Motorcycle Diaries.
Colm & Ken
The Crew
I had been away working and had heard of a series of meetings taking place in the village...something about an integrated village plan, Tipperary (North) County Council and a consultancy firm KSA (Keith Simpson Associates). It all sounded interesting and having little else to do that night I decided to attend and find out what it was all about....
I attended the meeting in St Kieran's Hall. It was the second or third meeting of the "Steering Group" ( I know, I know!! I didn't know what it was either) It turned out that at the first public meeting with the County Council and the Consultancy firm those who attended were asked to write down things they would like to see in the village... playgrounds, improved lighting, a youth club, a river walk... basically a wish list to make Cloughjordan a nicer place to live - not that it isn't a bad place to live already! A Steering Group was established to see what could be done with this list... to prioritise the wish list as it were.
I listened to the list being read out and saw where people were coming from. People were looking for things to do and places to go... things that would build a sense of place to Cloughjordan. I was thinking all along.... what can I do?
Somewhere on the list, number 98 or something I heard "Movie Club". Now that was interesting! When I was living in Dublin, where I was brought up, I attended the IFC often (Irish Film Centre - now the Irish Film Institute) and enjoyed the films they screened there. It was something I missed now, that I was not living in Dublin anymore - the availability of Art house Films (I'm not too keen on the name but that's what it's called!) I never thought that it would be me going about making it happen. I just accepted that those films were not available outside the cities...
Before I realised it, I had blurted out, "I'll do that!" I went home and just kinda laughed! What had I done! I had just publicly said I would go about setting up a cinema! Not having a notion about what I had let myself in for I set about doing a little surfing on the net to find out a bit more about the whole idea. I knew little or nothing about cinema and less about how to go about setting one up! But that was half the fun! Nothing like a good challenge!
I googled movie, clubs, films and all other cinema related words I could think of. I came across a body called Access Cinema. These, it seemed, were the guys I was looking for. As their website says..."access CINEMA supports significant and innovative regional cultural cinema programming in Ireland...These local film groups promote and screen films, both Irish and international, that would otherwise not be seen by regional audiences..." Well, I felt that what I was trying to do was innovative, so I told myself "Bingo!" Being late in the evening, I couldn't make contact with them but wanting to be doing something, I found a list of members, links and other clubs on the site. I made contact with Liam in the Midnight Court Film Society in Scarriff, Co Clare. Now he is one helpful guy! Firstly he reassured me that it was not a completely mad idea - slightly mad perhaps but not completely! He answered the 1003 questions I had and offered any help he could. And he has made a great giant screen available to us!
I made contact with Access Cinema the following day. A nicer, more helpful three women I couldn't have met! Alice, Yvonne and Maretta assured me that I was not mad and that there were others doing this! They couldn't do enough to help get the Cineclub off the ground.
A series of phone calls, a few meetings in Dublin to "register" the CineClub, a meeting to select films (more on that at a later date). So all I had to do now was....
- find a venue, (Cloughjordan is not short of halls anyway!)
- find a screen,
- a projector,
- a few speakers,
- an amplifier,
- get a DVD player,
- see if there were insurance issues,
- try to find a way of funding all of it,
- get a brochure together,
- stick up a few posters
- seating
- put the whole thing together
- and a few other bits and pieces!!!
That'll teach me to keep my mouth shut at a meeting next time!
I was walking home when I chanced to meet Ken. Who is Ken? Ken is a sound guy - literally!
It seems to be when you are looking for something, the answers come in the most unusual ways. I mentioned it to him about the cineclub idea. He was into it... no strange looks or anything and what was more he knew about amplification and speakers and sub woofers and all that! So Cloughjordan CineClub had a technical crew at last. I know something about projectors etc. We had the crew! We had the gear! We now just needed to figure out how to go about bringing it all together. Being on holidays I had time, and my goodness, but it does take time to do this - phone calls, and more phone calls and wearing out shoe leather and motorbike tyres and talking to, oh so, many people!
When I mentioned the idea of an Art house cinema to others most looked at me as if I had two heads or if I was unwell! However, the more I mentioned it to people the more positive the responses were. I found out that the last movie shown in Cloughjordan was "Shane" in 1961 in the Parochial Hall. Films were screened there on Sunday's by a travelling cinema. At least that was the day of the week for screening sorted. The concept of a cinema so was not a new one to Cloughjordan, rather just revitalising a project that had fallen by the wayside.
The Station Agent (15PG)
Sunday
21st August 2005 @ 8:00pm
€5.00
(Thanks especially to Siobhán for putting up with the chaos while this venture was being set up!)
It is hoped that the club will run two seasons a year, showing six or seven films per season. We'll increase this all going well.
Colm