The ninth annual Craic LGBT Fest will be presented on Thursday, May 16 at the Irish Arts Center
This year the festival will again be presented in association with the Irish Arts Center (IAC) itself.
Festival producer Terence Mulligan told IrishCentral, “We are delighted to be working with the IAC again and our special guest this year is the Irish filmmaker Steven Farrell."
"Steven will kick off the night with a Queer Ireland panel discussion on the uses of creativity. Steven will talk about the uses of creativity in overcoming adversity and there will be a panel discussion afterward, followed by an LGBT short film screening series with a reception to follow.”
Presented by Stella Artois and co-sponsored by Con Edison, the Craic LGBT Fest will screen films by Irish LGBT filmmakers based in the New York City and in Ireland.
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Award-winning shorts to be screened on the night will include Wren Boys, Dream Kitchen, Herd, Undress My Mother as well as local filmmaker Paul Rowley’s short Friday.
The panel discussion with Steven Farrell will start at 7P.M. “The central theme of my speech is how creativity, and expressing ourselves creatively can help us through tough times in our lives and not only can our creativity help us, it can help other people too and I believe this is one of the greatest gifts of creativity,” Farrell tells the Voice.
“I'll be sharing stories about my life and how on many occasions creativity has helped me through the dark times, and I believe, saved my life. Whether it was growing up gay in a socially and economically disadvantaged part of Dublin and not being one hundred percent comfortable with who I was and certainly not wanting to be gay, or in the early days of my stage three cancer diagnosis in 2017, up to this point in my life.
LGBT Pride Belfast
“I also speak about the way I express my creative soul and how that has changed since my diagnosis and how I believe it's important to acting now and live life before it's taken away and how important it is to ignore the negative opinions of others. Goal setting, self-belief, and negative self-talk also pop in and out of the chat, overall it's a positive, life-affirming, uplifting 25 minutes or so.”
The Queer Ireland event is funded by the Cultural Immigrant Initiative and City Council member Daniel Dromm.
You must RSVP to attend, so please visit the IAC site at irishartscenter.org. For further information contact festival producer Terence Mulligan at 917-373-6735 or email the411@thecraicfest.com.
You can also find more details about the festival at TheCraicFest.com
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