AN exciting line up of events is taking place in Dun Laoghaire this September as part of the Underground Cinema Film Festival.

The brainchild of Dave Byrne, it will be held over the weekend of September 9 to 11 with the theme ‘Working Class Heroes’.

The festival's aim is to champion independent filmmakers while highlighting the best in Irish film.

“To this end our opening film is Terry McMahon's award winning, provocative feature ‘Charlie Casanova’ which most recently won Best First Feature at The Galway Film Fleadh,” explained Denise Pattison, assistant festival director.

“This will be Charlie's first ever screening in Dublin and we are promoting it as ‘Charlie Comes Home’. The film has been winding its way around film festivals worldwide over the past year, and premiered at SXSW, Austin, Texas, the only Irish film to ever do so.”

Terry will be attending the festival and participating in interviews on Saturday 10.

Another highlight will be the 20th anniversary screening of ‘The Commitments’ with Roddy Doyle coming down to do an ‘In Conversation With’ segment.

 “We will also be screening ‘100 Mornings’, Conor Horgan's haunting, post apocalyptic feature and hosting a Q and A with Conor afterwards,” said Denise.

“As well as all that in a retrospective programme we will be screening Jim Sheridan's ‘In The Name Of The Father’ with surprise guests and Lenny Abrahamson's hugely popular ‘Adam and Paul’ with actor Mark O' Halloran doing the Q and A.

“We will be having an Irish language film section with a screening of ‘Kings’ and paying a tribute to the late actor Mick Lally by screening the last short he worked on, ‘Cairdeas’. Director Kevin Glynn will be discussing the film and presenting Ms Lally with a gift from the festival.

“There will also be a children's programme screening of ‘The Secret of Kells’ as well as goodie bags and a drama workshop with Sinead Monaghan.

“We have a large short film programme with over 70 films and will be running free workshops on every aspect of filmmaking with contributors like Ferdia MacAnna, Vinny Murphy, Una Kavanagh, Ali Coffey and others.”

According to Denise, there will be talks by experts in the field, and an ‘Actor in Profile’ segment, highlighting Emmett Scanlan's career and screening a selection of his work to include Blood and 3 Crosses.

He is also the lead actor in Charlie Casanova and won an award at the ECU International Film Festival in Paris for his role in the film.

“We have Joe Rooney on board to do a late night comedy stand up and have venues in The Royal Marine Hotel, The Kingston Hotel and The Dun Laoghaire Club,” added Denise. “Club Prive, part of the 40ft bar, is giving us access to the club for the opening ceremony and throughout the festival. We will screen our opening and closing films at the IMC Dun Laoghaire.

“And our closing film is the Irish premiere of Ivan Kavanagh's terrifying feature, ‘Tin Can Man’. Ivan will attend the screening along with lead actor Michael Parle.

“I would like to say how deeply grateful we are to all those who have given their time and support to the Underground Cinema Film Festival.”

The festival office is located at the former O' Connors Jeans shop on the second floor of Dun Laoghaire Shopping Centre.

The box office will be open for ticket sales in the first week of September. Tickets for the IMC can only be purchased at the box office.

More details on the festival will be next week’s edition of Southside People.