(Image: hiberniantransmedia.org/movie-hooley) — *(Image: hiberniantransmedia.org/movie-hooley)*

The Gene Siskel Film Center will host the third annual Irish American Movie Hooley from September 29-October 1st. This year’s event is comprised of three feature films, two of which are directorial debuts, all of whom are making their Chicago premieres. All screenings and events are at the Gene Siskel Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, located at 164 N. State St. Tickets are available through the Gene Siskel Film Center’s website or through the individual films’ web links.

The opening night film for Friday, September 29th will be Kevin Fortuna’s The Dunning Man, a pulpy crime film of modern Atlantic City that also acts as a callback love letter to the old town it used to be in its hey-day. The screening will be followed immediately by an audience talkback with Fortuna and follow up with an opening night reception at The Emerald Loop Pub nearby. Saturday’s feature will be Colin Broderick’s Emerald City, an award-winning blue-collar-meets-theatre drama debuting in Chicago after bows at the Manhattan Film Festival, London Irish Film Festival and the Belfast Film Festival. Broderick himself will attend the screening and post-film forum. The closing film on Sunday, October 1st will be The Young Offenders, a box office smash overseas in Ireland landing its teenage derelicts and comedic hijinks here stateside first in Chicago.

The third annual Irish American Movie Hooley is organized by local radio personality Mike Houlihan, Hibernian Transmedia, and Siskel Center program director Barbara Scharres. The event is presented by the tasty sponsorship of 2 Gingers Irish Whiskey. This very writer and website was both lucky and honored to cover this event last year and will again this year. Stay tuned here for future capsule reviews and full reviews. Get your Irish on at the Siskel Film Center this weekend!