The first Silent Light - Cork Super8 Fringe festival took place on Saturday 16th October in the 2005 European Capital of Culture. Holding the first festival in Ireland dedicated to Super8 films, and being the first fringe event of the official Cork Film Festival, could seem quite courageous on the part of the organisers. But from now on this one-day film festival will be a good addition to the long established festival.

The programme was very complete: a photographic exhibition by IADT Dún Laoghaire graduate Muireann Brady entitled 'Stolen Moments', film art by Margaret Fitzgibbon from Cork Artist's Collective, equipment sales, a book stall, a free projection session for those who would like to bring their own Super8 footage, and a Super8 Competition. All the events, apart from the competition, were run free of charge at the 18th century Unitarian Church (next to the English market) on Princess Street.

A total of thirteen international and national short films made on Super8 were screened at the competition, including experimental work, fiction shorts, and even holiday footage. A live performance, with a soundtrack created specially for the occasion, accompanied the silent pieces.

Some of the shorts, as the organisers remarked in the programme, were made through Straight8, an annual competition where they send you one cartridge of Super8 film, you shoot it straight in-camera, and hand it back undeveloped and un-edited for processing, then the first time you see the work is at the general screening. Actually two of the winners of the competition (1st and 3rd) were made at Straight8. The first prize went to Diego Arredondo's surreal comedy Tequila Chamuco (Mexico), three men's mirage after drinking a few bottles of Tequila. The second award was for Sam Spreckley's experimental work Silent Light (UK), and the third prize was awarded to Michael Higgins's Irish short There is a man in the habit of hitting me on the head with an Umbrella, based on a short story by Fernando Sorrentino. Mairead by Q (aka Colm Quearney), an Irish experimental work on the regular character of Dublin's O'Connell Street, received a special mention.

The festival finished with the screening of Ben Crowe's film The Man Who Met Himself, the first Super8 film selected for the Official Selection of the Cannes film festival. It was a full, interesting day that marks a new arrival on the Irish film scene.

Esther Terradas

www.corksuper8fringe.com