The Samhlaiocht Kerry Film Festival, which is celebrating nine years of bringing film to the people of Kerry, today announced the adjudicators for the Kerry Film Festival 2008, which runs from November 1st to November 8th.

The adjudicators that will judge this year's Kerry Film Festival short film competitions are:
Liam Neeson - Best Director
John Carney - Best Irish Narrative Short
Kirsten Sheridan - Best International Narrative Short
Vanessa Roth - Best Documentary Short
Suzie Templeton - Best Animated Short

"The Kerry Film Festival is delighted to announce its line up of adjudicators," said Jason O' Mahony, Artistic Director, Kerry Film Festival. "From Liam Neeson, a wonderful Oscar nominated Irish actor, to John Carney, director of ONCE, to Suzie Templeton an Oscar winner for her animated short PETER AND THE WOLF via Kirsten Sheridan, an Oscar nominated Irish writer and Vanessa Roth, who won an Oscar last year for her documentary short FREEHELD, every member of the adjudication panel is at the very forefront of their chosen profession and we're absolutely thrilled that they have decided to help adjudicate for the 2008 Kerry Film Festival."

"This will be the ninth year of the Kerry Film Festival and both the quantity and quality of the films has been rising every year," continued O' Mahony, "so we're delighted that the quality of adjudicators has kept pace with the growing importance of the festival. We're fantastically thankful to all our adjudicators for agreeing to judge the short films."

The adjudicators have an unenviable task in selecting the best film in each of the categories. Over four hundred films were submitted to the Kerry Film Festival this year, up significantly on the total number of films submitted to last year's festival and more than double the number of films submitted in previous years.

For a brief Bio on the Adjudicators please see below:
Liam Neeson - Best Director
Liam Neeson is one of the leading International film stars working today. Whether it is his Academy Award nominated role of Oskar Schindler in Steven Spielberg's highly acclaimed SCHILDLER'S LIST (1993), his award-winning portrayal of legendary Irish Republican hero in MICHAEL COLLINS (1996), or his role as controversial sex therapist Alfred Kinsey in the critically acclaimed KINSEY (2004), Neeson continues to display an acting range which can be matched by very few.

John Carney - Best Irish Narrative Short
John Carney is a writer/director who exploded onto the world stage following the surprise box office hit of critically acclaimed, ONCE, which scooped many prestigious awards including the coveted World Cinema Audience Award at Sundance and an Oscar for Best Original Song, Falling Slowly, by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. Steven Spielberg famously said that this "little movie (ONCE) gave me enough inspiration to last the rest of the year!" With hotly anticipated low budget comedy ZONAD about to bow, and two films in development, John is the most exciting Director to happen to Irish Film for a long time!

Kirsten Sheridan - Best International Narrative Short
Kirsten Sheridan was born in Dublin in 1976. She has had a remarkable career directing five short films including, THE BENCH (1995), PATTERNS (1998), and THE CASE OF MAJELLA MCGINTY (1999), which have all been showered with praise on the International Film Festival circuit. Her first feature film, DISCO PIGS was selected as one of the three finalists in Europe for the prestigious Sundance/NHK Award and went on to scoop many other awards including the Grand Prize Best Film at the Ourense Film Festival.

In 2003 she co-wrote the original screenplay for the critically acclaimed IN AMERICA (2003) for which she received an Academy Award Nomination. She was also nominated for the Golden Globes, the Writers Guild of America Award, and the Humanities Prize. In 2007, Kirsten completed her US feature film debut, AUGUST RUSH, which was a box office success and received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song.

Kirsten lives and works in Dublin, Ireland where she has her own film production company 'Blindside Films' and is the mother of two small children.

Vanessa Roth - Best Documentary Short
Vanessa Roth is the producer of the Oscar winning documentary short FREEHELD. She produced and directed the 2007 award-winning documentary THE THIRD MONDAY IN OCTOBER and co-produced and co-directed the award-winning 2004 PBS documentary AGING OUT, which is the center of a multi- million-dollar national foster care outreach campaign sponsored by the Annie Casey Foundation. Roth produced and directed the 2002 award-winning film CLOSE TO HOME which premiered at Sundance and aired as a prime-time special. Her 1998 PBS film TAKEN IN: THE LIVES OF AMERICA'S FOSTER CHILDREN won the coveted duPont Columbia award.

Suzie Templeton - Best Animated Short
Suzie Templeton is a writer, director and animator. She studied animation at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham, UK where she made the award-winning stop-motion film STANLEY about a man who falls in love with a cabbage! She then studied at the RCA and made DOG, a BAFTA winning stop-motion film about a man and his son dealing with their bereavement. Her half-hour stop-motion adaptation of Prokofiev's PETER AND THE WOLF won a British Animation Award, a Golden Rose, and the Grand Prize and the Audience Award at Annecy. It then went on to win an Oscar earlier this year. She currently lives in Amsterdam.

About The Kerry Film Festival
The Kerry Film Festival was established in 2000 and brings films & filmmakers from around the globe to one of the world's most beautiful locations. With a rich and varied film history the delightfully scenic Kingdom of Kerry, which is located on the scenic South West Coast of Ireland, has starred in Oscar Winning classic films from David Lean's RYAN'S DAUGHTER to Jim Sheridan's THE FIELD.

The main feature of the festival is a short film competition which focuses on young filmmakers seeking exposure for their work. Past adjudicators of the Kerry Film Festival Short Film Competition have included such luminaries as Mike Leigh, Jim Sheridan, Neil Jordan and Gabriel Byrne.

The festival recognises film as an important art medium and provides a diverse range of quality film and has screenings in Tralee, Listowel, Dingle, Valencia, Killarney, Kenmare, Waterville and Caherciveen making it a film festival for all of Kerry. For more information or to download application forms please log onto http://www.kerryfilmfestival.com/ email info@samhlaiocht.com or call +353 66 712 9934