Those lovely folks at the IFI bar are offering Darklight ticket holders some great discounts over the course of the festival. There’s 10% off all food purchases over €10 and €1 off all cocktails. Just present your Darklight ticket to your server. They also have their usual drinks offers, pitchers of Bavaria for €10 and 6 bottles of Sol for €18.

Have a peek here for all the wondrous events and screenings we have there for the festival.

Here’s a Reminder for you . . . Early Bird Ticket Specials.

The Early Bird Tickets are now sold out! We are now selling Darklight Season Passes for the price of €75 via the IFI box-office.

Darklight 2010: Heroes Edition will take place 28 – 30 October 2010 in the IFI, Filmbase and the Grand Social (formerly Pravda).

For a limited time Darklight are selling a number of Early Bird discount season passes to the Festival. For just €60 the Early Bird ticket will allow access to all screenings, all workshops and all live events over the course of the festival weekend*. These heavily discounted tickets are in short supply, numbers are limited so get yours before they’re all sold out!

For ticket sales information go to http://www.irishfilm.ie/index_254.asp

*Fas Screen Training Ireland Masterclasses are not be included in the season passes. Interested parties must contact Fas Screen Training Ireland directly to apply – info on the masterclass at Darklight will be announced soon.

We’re delighted to announce the competition winners of this year’s Darklight movie-making challenge ‘Free Your Film’ run in association with Sony Ericsson.

We received a huge response to our competition, and the standard of entries was extremely high. After much deliberation we decided to increase the number of budgets awarded, – instead of awarding 3 projects budget to produce a short – we’re funding 4 shorts films, providing them with €3000 each! A very big Congratulations to the winners: Carmel Callan, David Freyne, Jessie Ward, Shane Maher & Anthony Fitzsimons. The films will be screened as part of Darklight Festival, on the 28th October 2010 at the Darklight Festival launch Party in the Grand Social.

For Darklight 2010: Heroes Edition, we’ve asked some of our festival alumni and contributors from the past 10 editions to invite their heroes to this year’s Darklight. They will be programing screenings, workshops and gigs for the festival. Our Guest Programmers for 2010 are:

Animator David O’Reilly, art/music/technology collective Synth Eastwood, independent gig promoters and record label Skinny Wolves, Film & Animation History lecturer and musician Michael Connerty, digital rights expert and documentary filmmaker Caroline Campbell and Producer extraordinare Katie Holly.

For more information on Darklight’s Heroes, click here

Announcing… Early Bird Ticket Specials, Season pass for Darklight 2010: Heroes Edition on sale for just  €60 via the IFI.

There are just 10 short weeks left to the next edition of the Darklight Festival! Darklight 2010: Heroes Edition will take place 28 – 31 October 2010 in and around Temple Bar, Dublin 2.

For a limited time Darklight are selling a number of Early Bird discount season passes to the Festival. For just  €60 the Early Bird ticket will allow access to all screenings, all workshops and all live events over the course of the festival weekend*. These heavily discounted tickets are in short supply, numbers are limited so get yours before theyre all sold out!

For ticket sales information go to the IFI website: http://www.irishfilm.ie/index_254.asp

*Fas Screen Training Ireland Masterclasses are not be included in the season passes. Interested parties must contact Fas Screen Training Ireland directly to apply – info on the masterclass at Darklight will be announced soon.

Hi All,

The competition deadline for Free Your Film is fast approaching. There is just one week left, you have until midnight 23 August to submit your ideas for short films for the chance to win a budget of €3,000 to make your film.

All the information you need is here: darklight.ie/freeyourfilm. Any questions / queries should be sent to free your film at darklight dot ie.

Best of Luck!

Darklight and Sony Ericson have just launched a collaborative competition to find 3 aspiring filmmakers. We’re offering a budget of €3000 to make your short film, which will then be premiered on the opening night of the Darklight Film Festival. The films will also be given additional exposure by Darklight and Sony Ericsson. Free Your Film Competition would like to thank our fav babe Sarah Bolger who dropped by the IFI today to kickstart our unique short film competition. In real style!

Click here for more info and how to enter.

The Details!

• Film: XIU XIU & FORMER GHOSTS
• Event: Live Events
• Date: Friday, October 29th 2010
• Time: 8:00pm
• City: XIU XIU & FORMER GHOSTS in Dublin
• Venue: The Grand Social (Formerly Pravda)
• Address: 35 Lower Liffey St
• Country: IE
• Admission: €15
• Age restrictions: No Minors
• Notes: Skinny Wolves in association with Darklight 2010 presents XIU XIU + FORMER GHOSTS & special guests Friday 29th October The Grand Social, (formerly Pravda) Doors 8pm Tickets €15 available from http://www.tickets.ie/skinnywolves & City Discs ———– XIU XIU http://www.myspace.com/xiuxiuforlife Read almost any piece about Xiu Xiu and you’ll see words like ‘harsh’ or ‘brutal’ — the same words that appear before ‘truth’ when an unwavering eye is turned on any intimate detail of our lives. Fair descriptions of the themes central to the music, they sit incongruous to the refined, intricate, and beautiful approach taken in crafting the twelve tracks on Xiu Xiu’s new album Dear God, I Hate Myself. Stewart is joined by new full-time band member Angela Seo on piano, synth, and drum programming; with production handled by Jamie and Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier. Together they’ve crafted a fully grown sound for Dear God, I Hate Myself with elements from goth and pop that are expertly performed by a crop of brilliant musicians. Saunier himself plays on much of the record as does Ches Smith (John Zorn, Terry Riley, Marc Ribot) who supplies timpani, conga and moog along with a broad range of other instrumentation. Deerhoof’s John Dieterich is all over a rendition of the traditional folk song “Cumberland Gap” and Xiu Xiu is even joined by the Immaculata Catholic School Orchestra in Stewart’s ode to heartbreak and healing, “This Too Shall Pass Away (for Freddy).” The title track, one of four songs done primarily on a Nintendo DS, explores the relationship between faith and despair with a layer of commentary provided by the bizarre sounds of the music itself. Each new Xiu Xiu release has evolved alongside the lives of Jamie Stewart and company. On this record you’ll find more intensity and introspection than ever before, but sonically and lyrically it continues to move forward with a subtly new perspective — hyper-focussed yet aware of a larger, external picture unfolding. The pace of the record grips you, the music offers layers of detail, and the themes focus on not just the past or stark present but hint towards vespers of the future as well. Dear God, I Hate Myself will challenge you and force you to look inside yourself, but only after you get lost in the music. It’s passionate, it’s energetic, and it affects you. Dear God, I Hate Myself is a beautiful piece of humanist art. It’s an important addition to the growing body of intelligent music from Xiu Xiu. And it’s a brilliant gothic pop record that can stand next to anything. http://pitchfork.com/artists/4683-xiu-xiu/ ————————- FORMER GHOSTS http://www.myspace.com/formerghostssleep “Former Ghosts is a new synthpop project from Freddy Ruppert, formerly of This Song Is a Mess But So Am I. The band is also comprised of Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart and Zola Jesus’ Nika Roza. Ruppert is the lead songwriter on this brutally gloomy, Joy Division-esque project. The title of the debut, Fleurs, is a reference to the white-flowered iris (Iris germanica). ” – lastfm
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It is with great pleasure that we announce to you details of this year’s festival, Darklight Festival 2010 – The Heroes Edition. This year’s Darklight will be a Symposium year and will take place 28th – 31st October in various venues across Temple Bar.

The theme of Darklight 2010 is ‘Heroes’ and we’ve asked some of Our Heroes, some of our favourite Darklight contributors over the past 11 years, to invite Their Heroes to this year’s Darklight Festival and programme a series of screenings, talks and events inspired by them.

We’ll announcing our Heroes very shortly for you. Plus details of early bird deals and film making competitions for all aspiring auteurs. Make sure to stay tuned! Follow us on Twitter for all the updates @Darklight_2010. In the meantime watch Gavin Kelly’s short from our 2008 movie challenge Dublin: The Movie