Stranger Than Fiction Documentary Film Festival and Market

It’s my great pleasure to welcome you to this year’s Stranger Than Fiction Festival.

This is the sixth year of the event, and the first without the indomitable Gráinne Humphreys at the helm. With Gráinne’s departure, Irish Film Institute Director Mark Mulqueen decided to approach this year’s festival in a different way, deciding to bring an independent film-maker on board as festival director.

As a documentary-maker used to submitting films to such festivals, I was delighted to be asked to put together this event. It has been an honour and a privilege, as well as a real eye-opener, to take up a position on the other side of the fence this year. My first impression was just how much good work is currently being made in Ireland. Due in no small part to the support and commitment of the Irish Film Board and broadcasters RTE and TG4, this year’s programme sees a particularly strong selection of Irish films exploring many aspects of Irish life, past and present. This year's opening feature The Undertaking stands out as one of the most beautiful films to come out of Ireland in many years.

The feature-length documentary continues to thrive on the international scene, and I have selected 14 films which I hope you will at turns find provocative, entertaining, heartbreaking, hilarious; always, I hope, deeply affecting. Truth is indeed stranger that fiction, and documentaries tap into humanity in all its vagaries in ways that drama can't; witness the delightful and witty Helvetica (yes, it is a documentary about a font), or Jessica Yu’s wonderfully crafted Protagonist, or indeed Donal McIntyre's truly terrifying A Very British Gangster.

We are delighted to welcome Roger Graef as special guest of the festival; criminologist, founding member of channel 4, director of the Secret Policeman's Ball (amongst many others), he is a towering figure in the world of documentary film. We also welcome directors of thirteen of the films screening, as well as contributions from David Norris, Louis de Paor, Stephen Rea and Richard Boyd Barrett.

This is perhaps a golden age of documentary film, and for the four days of Stranger than Fiction, I’d encourage you to come to IFI to meet the filmmakers, to partake in the market, to engage in the discussions, and to see the finest of documentary films from Ireland as well as from throughout the world.

James Kelly, Festival Director