Cork's Fastnet Film Festival to see Interference get screen and stage time

ONE of the highlights of this year’s Fastnet Film Festival will be an event dedicated to Schull native and late singer-songwriter and Interference frontman Fergus O’Farrell.

The award-winning documentary Breaking Out will be screened in the park in Schull on Sunday 29 May, and will be followed by a live concert performance by Interference.

Directed by Michael McCormack, Breaking Out celebrates the remarkable life of Schull native and late Irish musician Fergus O’Farrell, and was a 16-year labour of love for the director.

O’Farrell’s song Gold was a showstopper in Glen Hansard’s Oscar-winning film Once, he was the charismatic voice of Interference, one of the most influential bands of the Irish music scene in the 1990s. Interference will play a tribute concert to Fergus following the screening.

The documentary Breaking Out follows O’Farrell and his band Interference from their early days in Dublin to his death from muscular dystrophy in 2016 and the release in 2017 of the band’s final album, The Sweet Spot.

Winner of the George Morrison Best Feature Documentary at the 2021 IFTAs and best Irish feature documentary at the Galway Film Fleadh 2019, Breaking Out is a Silver Moonbeam Film production in association with Fís Eireann/Screen Ireland distributed by Element.

The 13th Fastnet Film Festival will run for five days from Wednesday 25 to Sunday 29 May in the seaside village of Schull, and will screen feature films, run workshops, masterclasses and seminars in pop-up venues in a village that has no cinema.

The festival organisers say this year’s line-up will be unprecedented, with over 50 expert guests taking part, in excess of 300 screenings from 40-plus countries, as well as local interest films and a world cinema programme.