Film festivals
 |
The film received the Critic's Choice Award at the 2006 Baseball Film Festival at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. The award was selected and presented by film critic Jeffrey Lyons. [2]
| The Emerald Diamond | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | John Fitzgerald |
Release date |
|
Running time | 114 minutes |
| Country | Republic of Ireland |
| Language | English |
The Emerald Diamond is a documentary following the history of Baseball Ireland and the Irish national baseball team directed by John Fitzgerald and starring Chris Foy. It was released in 2006. [1]
Director John Fitzgerald financed the film almost entirely on credit cards while working freelance at various jobs in the TV and film industries. The film crew was made up of professionals from in and around Fitzgerald's hometown of Valhalla, NY, with each crew member coincidentally living in towns along the Metro North Railroad's Harlem Line – leading to the creation of Harlem Line Pictures and, later, Harlem Line Media.
Although the film received positive reviews from The New York Times, New York Post, Irish Echo, and National Public Radio, Fitzgerald opted to release it immediately before receiving a traditional distribution deal. On 25 February 2006, The Emerald Diamond debuted to a sold out crowd of 250 people at the Jacob Burns Film Center in New York. Among those in the crowd was Major League Baseball Executive Vice-President Robert Manfred. Manfred was taken with the Irish National Team's story and promised to help the film and the team in any way he could. He arranged to have the film's trailer played at Shea Stadium (New York), Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome (Minneapolis), and AT&T Park (San Francisco).
The Emerald Diamond was screened in theatres in 22 US cities and two Irish cities, between February and August 2006. Many of the US screenings were sponsored by Irish heritage organisations, baseball museums or Irish-based vodka company Boru Vodka.
| |
The film received the Critic's Choice Award at the 2006 Baseball Film Festival at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. The award was selected and presented by film critic Jeffrey Lyons. [2]
The film received positive reviews from The New York Times, New York Post, National Public Radio and several Irish-American newspapers. In addition, the film was featured by Fox News, National Public Radio and Boston's CBS-4. The attraction of major media outlets is rare for a low-budget film, but was likely due to the underdog story of the Irish National Team, coupled with Fitzgerald's determination to make the film entirely on credit cards.
After winning the Critic's Choice Award at the 2006 Baseball Film Festival, Fitzgerald confirmed that he was writing a feature film script based on the story of the Irish National Baseball Team. He noted that the script will contain several stories that didn't make it to the documentary. He refused to confirm or deny interest or involvement of any actors.
Fitzgerald also announced that he has founded a nonprofit group to help further the development of Irish youth baseball and the Irish National Baseball Team. The organisation is called "The Baseball United Foundation" and is focused on making the game of baseball accessible to communities where the game is not traditionally played. [6]
Ella Jane Fitzgerald was an American singer, songwriter and composer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing, timing, intonation, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing.
The Quiet Man is a 1952 American romantic comedy-drama film directed and produced by John Ford, and starring John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Victor McLaglen, Barry Fitzgerald, and Ward Bond. The screenplay by Frank S. Nugent was based on a 1933 Saturday Evening Post short story of the same name by Irish author Maurice Walsh, later published as part of a collection titled The Green Rushes. The film features Winton Hoch's lush photography of the Irish countryside and a long, climactic, semi-comic fist fight.
Kenneth Lauren Burns is an American filmmaker known for his documentary films and television series, many of which chronicle American history and culture. His work is often produced in association with WETA-TV or the National Endowment for the Humanities and distributed by PBS.
The Harlem Globetrotters are an American exhibition basketball team. They combine athleticism, theater, entertainment, and comedy in their style of play. Over the years, they have played more than 26,000 exhibition games in 124 countries and territories, mostly against deliberately ineffective opponents, such as the Washington Generals and the New York Nationals (1995–2015). The team's signature song is Brother Bones' whistled version of "Sweet Georgia Brown", and their mascot is an anthropomorphized globe named "Globie". The team is owned by Herschend Family Entertainment.
Bull Durham is a 1988 American romantic comedy sports film. It is partly based upon the minor-league baseball experiences of writer/director Ron Shelton and depicts the players and fans of the Durham Bulls, a minor-league baseball team in Durham, North Carolina.
A Great Day in Harlem or Harlem 1958 is a black-and-white photograph of 57 jazz musicians in Harlem, New York, taken by freelance photographer Art Kane for Esquire magazine on August 12, 1958. The idea for the photo came from Esquire's art director, Robert Benton, rather than Kane. However, after being given the commission, it seems the latter was responsible for choosing the location for the shoot. The subjects are shown at 17 East 126th Street, between Fifth and Madison Avenue, where police had temporarily blocked off traffic. Published as the centerfold of the January 1959 issue of Esquire, the image was captured with a Hasselblad camera, and earned Kane his first Art Directors Club of New York gold medal for photography. It has been called "the most iconic photograph in jazz history".
Martin Irving Glickman was an American radio announcer who was famous for his broadcasts of the New York Knicks basketball games and the football games of the New York Giants and the New York Jets.
A Prairie Home Companion is a 2006 American musical comedy film directed by Robert Altman in his final film. It is a fictional representation of behind-the-scenes activities at the long-running public radio show of the same name. The film received mostly positive reviews and was a moderate box-office success on a small budget. The film features an ensemble cast including Woody Harrelson, Tommy Lee Jones, Garrison Keillor, Kevin Kline, Lindsay Lohan, Virginia Madsen, John C. Reilly, Maya Rudolph, Meryl Streep, and Lily Tomlin.
Roderick James "Jess" McMahon Sr. was an American professional wrestling and professional boxing promoter, and patriarch of the McMahon family, founders of Capitol Wrestling Corporation, precursor to the present-day WWE.
The first baseball game in Ireland was held in Dublin in 1874, and it continues to be played by several teams including in the Irish Baseball League. Baseball Ireland is the governing body of baseball on the island of Ireland, covering both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Zoo TV: Live from Sydney is a concert film by Irish rock band U2. It was shot on 27 November 1993 at Sydney Football Stadium in Sydney, Australia, during the "Zoomerang" leg of the group's Zoo TV Tour. Directed by David Mallet, the concert was televised worldwide via pay-per-view, and was released on home video in May 1994 on VHS and Laserdisc.
Paul Birchard is an American actor who lives in Finland. He has appeared in film, television, stage and radio productions, most notably as Bud in Sweet Bird of Youth with the Royal National Theatre, Ross in The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, and Chuck in the premiere of Frank Grimes's first performed play, The Fishing Trip. Birchard is also known for his one-man stage adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald stories, a documentary film about Tennessee Williams and Konrad Hopkins which he produced and directed, and a song promoting the Glasgow Diamonds American football team.
Blood Diamond is a 2006 American political war thriller film directed and co-produced by Edward Zwick and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly, and Djimon Hounsou. The title refers to blood diamonds, which are diamonds mined in war zones and sold to finance conflicts, and thereby profit warlords and diamond companies around the world.
The Westchester Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Westchester County, New York, United States. It is a non-profit organization. The festival features premieres and screenings of new, independent films. It screens dramatic and documentary feature films, international films, short films and student films and presents Jury and Audience awards in many categories.
The Natural is a 1984 American sports film based on Bernard Malamud's 1952 novel of the same name, directed by Barry Levinson, and starring Robert Redford, Robert Duvall, Glenn Close, Kim Basinger, Wilford Brimley, Barbara Hershey, Robert Prosky and Richard Farnsworth. Like the novel, the film recounts the experiences of Roy Hobbs, an individual with great "natural" baseball talent, spanning the decades of Roy's career. In direct contrast to the novel, the film ends on a positive tone. It was the first film produced by TriStar Pictures.
The Belfast Northstars is one of two clubs from Northern Ireland competing in the Baseball Ireland adult league. The Northstars play their home games at Hydebank Playing Fields in Newtownbreda, Belfast. The club competes in Baseball Ireland's B League.
Bishop Hendricken High School is a Catholic, all-male, college preparatory high school located in Warwick, Rhode Island, in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence.
A Great Day in Harlem is a 1994 American documentary film directed by Jean Bach about the photograph of the same name. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Wilma Briggs was an American left fielder in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League who played from 1948 through 1954. Listed at 5' 4", 138 lb., she batted left-handed and threw right-handed. She led the league in home runs during the 1953 season, ranks second in the all-time home runs list (43) behind Eleanor Callow (55) and over Dorothy Schroeder (42) and Jean Geissinger (41), and was one of only 14 players to collect 300 or more career runs batted in, yet she was never selected to the All-Star team. Briggs was inducted into the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame in 2013.
Summer of Soul is a 2021 American independent documentary film about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, directed by Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson in his directorial debut. It had its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival on January 28, 2021, where it won the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award in the documentary categories. It had a limited theatrical release in the U.S. by Searchlight Pictures on June 25, 2021, before expanding and being released for streaming on Hulu the next weekend.