Bloomsday Film Festival returns for 2025

The Bloomsday Film Festival, run in partnership with the Bloomsday Festival and the James Joyce Centre offers a unique festival experience blending film and literature in celebration of James Joyce’s relationship with cinema and the city of Dublin. 

Festivities commence with a launch party on Wednesday 11th June from 6pm at the James Joyce Centre. The night will feature a medley of unique entertainment including a performance from the Giorgi Aleksidze Tbilisi Contemporary Ballet company, music from David Keenan and Gramophone Dublin Social with a drinks reception sponsored by Writers Tears.

From Thursday 12 until Saturday 15, the opulent surroundings of the Belvedere Townhouse, Great Denmark St, Dublin 1, will play host to an eclectic array of over 60 short films and features from Ireland and throughout the world( Japan, Brazil, Estonia, Canada to name but a few) ranging from stories about Dublin to films with a Joycean, literary, poetic and experimental theme. 

The venue is especially apt as it is where Joyce studied as a boy when he attended Belvedere College- the school features in his novel Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man.

Every year the festival celebrates Joyce’s beloved city of Dublin with a programme of short films themed Dublin Short Stories:

Brian Gleeson stars in the affecting  I Found A Place, Zoe Gibney’s debut film about a man trying to make a new life in Dublin while Conveyance by Gemma Creagh, a comedy featuring a young couple struggling to find a home, takes a slightly more light hearted look at the housing crisis. 

Sophie Meehan’s Young People of Ireland , takes us back in time for a playful exploration of underground responses to social mores in 1970s Ireland, told through a day in the life of two young women. The Un-chaotic Cabinet That Wishes For Me To Sleep is a beautiful animation by Dublin filmmaker Cillian Green which follows a young adult struggling with his identity making his way through suburban Dublin hoping to clear his head. 

Cúan de Búrca’s gorgeously noirish Irish language film Sruth Na Life (The Liffey Flow) meditates on Dublin past and present, the flow of the Liffey,  the flow of time, and the poet, surgeon and conversationalist Oliver St-John Gogarty. 

Canadian filmmaker Godfrey Jordan documents the story of Dublin legend Bang-Bang ( AKA Thomas Dudley) with the help of Liberties resident Paddy McAvinue in The Liberties of Paddy and Bang-Bang

As part of the poetry programme, viral TikTok poet Mikey Cullen stars in City in Crisis, a short film by Louis O’Flynn-Martin. Ballyfermot filmmaker, Tanya Notaro writes, directs, co-produces and stars in Postpartum, an experimental short which delves into post-childbirth horrors. Godfrey Jordan examines Joyce’s spiritual leanings in James Joyce and the Jesuits and his promo Saving Sweny’s features a call out for donations to keep the famous Sweny’s Pharmacy as featured in ‘Ulysses’ from closing down.

Bloomsday Film Festival collaborates with the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation to produce poetry films inspired by the works of Joyce and the spirit of modern Dublin — his self-proclaimed ‘Universal City’. 

This special screening as part of the festival includes the short poetry Cities Unlimited written by poet Stephen James Smith, read by Leah Minto, directed by Luke De Brún. Other films being screened star actors Eanna Hardwicke and Olwen Fouéré.  Stephen James Smith will perform live at the event.

Tickets are priced from €5 and a Season Ticket is €35 which includes access to all events including the Launch Party and Awards Ceremony

More information and tickets at: www.bloomsdayfestival.ie/bloomsday-film-festival/