Once

If recent Hollywood attempts to rejuvenate the film musical have seemed mired in nostalgia and bombast, then Once will feel like a tonic. Director John Carney refers to his film – which charts the developing relationship between a busking songwriter and an immigrant Czech cleaner on the streets of Dublin – as a ‘visual album’, aptly describing its small, intimate scale and the organic means by which songs teem over the story. But by any name it is a musical – albeit one with more heart and invention, and a more playful, progressive grasp of the form, than we have grown accustomed to. (Samuel Wigley)

European Panorama · Eröffnungsfilme | Opening Films 2008
John Carney
Ireland 2007
color
85 minutes
OV with German subtitles
Screenplay John Carney
Cinematography Tim Fleming
Editing Paul Mullen
Music Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová, Felix Mendelssohn
With Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová, Hugh Walsh, Gerry Hendrick, Alastair Foley, Geoff Minogue, Bill Hodnett, Danuse Ktrestova
Production
Samson Films The Barracks 76 Irishtown Road Dublin 4 Irland T +353 1 667 0533 F +353 1 667 0537 info@samsonfilms.com www.samsonfilms.com