This year’s event will take place from November 11-20 and will showcase home-grown talent alongside international features, with a strong focus on documentary film.

Opening night of the 2016 Cork Film Festival features the stunning new documentary, Dancer, profiling bad-boy ballet star Sergei Polunin, directed by Academy Awards nominee Steven Cantor. The acclaimed A United Kingdom, starring David Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike, will close the 61st Cork Film Festival.

Continuing to nurture home-grown talent, the festival will screen 39 Irish short films, with over a quarter from Cork. Submissions this year, both nationally and internationally, exceeded 1,500. The winner of the Grand Prix Irish Short, presented by RTÉ Cork, along with the winner of the Grand Prix International, will automatically qualify for the Academy Awards longlist.

Speaking ahead of the launch at The River Lee, Festival Creative Director James Mullighan said: “Films have the ability to entertain, challenge, exhilarate, and surprise, and this year’s Cork Film Festival is encouraging audiences to regard features and documentaries as equally valid films. We are delighted to announce the addition of Doc Day, Ireland’s premier documentary industry event, presented in partnership with the Irish Film Board and Screen Training Ireland on 18 November. This flagship occasion at The River Lee brings together Irish and international industry leaders to explore the landscape in which projects are conceived, developed and distributed.”

Films will be screened at locations across the city, The Everyman, Gate Cinema, Triskel Christchurch, and there will be a special visual and audio experience, fLux, at St Fin Barre’s Cathedral, with musical innovators, Eat My Noise.

The Festival’s major Irish films include thriller I Am Not a Serial Killer on 17 November from Irish producer Nick Ryan (director, The Summit) and Cork native writer/director Billy O’Brien; along with Forever Pure on 18 November, a feature documentary about the most symbolic football club in Israel, Beitar Jerusalem.

For full details of all films and bookings see corkfilmfest.org