Join other Irish film buffs at a free screening of Kenneth Branagh’s 2021 film, Belfast on Sunday, October 26, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Belfast won the People’s Choice Award at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival and Branagh, who also directed the film, won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. The film runs 97 minutes and attendees will be welcome to stay for a discussion after the screening.

Attendance is free, but due to seating limitations, attendees must REGISTER HERE. Donations to support free films at Celtic Junction Arts Center are welcome.

By any measure, Belfast is a beautifully photographed coming-of-age drama set in tension-filled Belfast at the start of The Troubles in the late 1960’s. We see the world through the eyes of Buddy, a nine-year-old boy in a working-class Protestant family in Belfast. As the world around him collapses into sectarian violence and all are asked to take a side, Buddy begins to have feelings for Catherine, a Catholic girl. All the while, Buddy’s parents struggle with the same limited options so many Irish have faced over the centuries. Stay in Ireland among the poverty and violence, or leave their home, perhaps never to return.

The film received widespread critical acclaim after premiering in 2021 at the Telluride Film Festival, garnering seven Golden Globe nominations, eleven Critics’ Choice Award nominations, and six nominations at the British Academy Film Awards, where it won the award for Outstanding British Film. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including nominations for veteran actors Ciaran Hinds and Judi Dench, who portray Buddy’s grandparents. Kevin Maher of The Times gave it 5/5 stars and said, “It’s a film of formal beauty, letter-perfect performances, complex and textured writing…and enough comedic one-liners and Van Morrison musical montages to make you forget that you are watching a drama about seething sectarian hatreds”.

This is truly a remarkable film that captures Belfast and its people at the beginning of their downward spiral into The Troubles and is drawn from the director and screenwriter Kevin Branagh’s own lived experience.

The film will be held in the ballroom.