Éanna Hardwicke honoured at opening of Cork International Film Festival

Actor Éanna Hardwicke has received an Honorary Puttnam Award at the opening of the 71st Cork International Film Festival on Thursday. He starred in Saipan, the film which opened last year's festival.

This year's opener was Olivier Clert's film Lucy Lost, based on the novel Listen to the Moon by Michael Morpurgo. It premiered at the festival's Opening Gala on November 12, kicking off 11 days of premieres, screenings, and awards across Cork.

"I fell in love with acting in Saturday classes inside in the South Parish Community Centre", said Hardwicke after receiving the award.

"As a teenager, under the outstanding teachers at the MTU Cork School of Music, I realised this is what I wanted to spend my life doing. I feel blessed to have grown up in this city and to have gotten the rich theatre education I did here.

"To return to the South Parish, to the MTU Cork School of Music, a building that has a very special resonance to me, and to receive this Honorary Puttnam Award, named after David Puttnam, Cork International Film Festival Patron - who has played such a seismic role in art and cinema in this city - is a great honour. I'm looking forward to this wonderful film festival taking over the city for the next two weeks", he said.

Hardwicke's latest film, Ancestors, directed by David Turpin, will premiere in Cork next week.

He has won an IFTA Award for his role in Saipan. The Cork native has also won an award at the Berlinale, at the Galway Fleadh for his role in Lakelands, and a BAFTA and IFTA for the BBC One series The Sixth Commandment.

The Cork film festival's Opening Weekend also includes talks and Q&A sessions with directors, actors, filmmakers and special guests.

On Saturday, writer and director Dara Van Dusen and cinematographer Kate McCullough, who collaborated on A Prayer For the Dying, will be in conversation after its screening. McCullough previously received a Best Cinematographer Award for her work on An Cailín Ciúin or The Quiet Girl.

A new addition to the festival this year is the Granary Theatre serving as Short Film Hub, with nine Irish and International short films being shown. Meanwhile, UCC's Theatre Department is putting on When Sally Met Harry Live: A Theatre Experiment, based on the 1989 film When Harry Met Sally.

Other additions this year are a Bigger Picture strand which recognises films' key themes and includes longer panel discussions, and a Best New Irish Feature Award sponsored by the Irish Examiner.

Over 200 film screenings and events are scheduled from November 12 to 22 this year, making CIFF Ireland's largest, as well as oldest, film festival.

Tickets and more information are available here.