Guiness and Stout are to Ireland what Whisky is to Scotland. So it's fitting that, like Edinburgh Film Festival's former sponsor Drambuie Whisky, this year's Cork Film Festival is headline sponsored by Murphy's, the famous Irish stout second only to Guiness in the drinking leagues. At 45 this year, Cork is a veritable old man of the film festival circuit, and brings to Ireland for the first time many of the strongest players at Edinburgh, Venice and Toronto.

New this year is a major short film competition with an overall prize fund of £57,000 (euro72,000), which is the largest in Europe. The Jameson Award (another whisky sponsor!) for Best International Short Film is to the value of £20,000 (euro25,500), the Award for Best Irish Short Film, in association with Anner International, is to the value of £25,500 (euro32,500). The Claire Lynch Award for Best First Short Film by an Irish Director is worth £8,500 (euro10,500) while the Made in Cork Award has a value of £2,000 (euro2,500). Since the festival's launch in 1956, Cork has become a strong champion of short films, with over 100 screening this year. Rory Concannon, festival manager commented 'These awards will give us a greater means to reward and acknowledge excellence… our prize fund is now the largest in Europe and this is a terrific boost to filmmakers in Ireland and internationally".

The festival opens at the refurbished Opera House on Sunday October 15^th with Gerard Stembridge's About Adam. This second film from National Lottery franchise DNA makes its Irish premiere in a tale following the misadventures of one family after their encounter with the malevolent Adam played by Stuart Townsend with Machiavellian zeal. Kate Hudson, receiving great reviews for Almost Famous, co-stars.

 Peaches, which was filmed in Dublin last year and written and directed by Nick Grasso, receives it's world premiere at Cork,. Based on the acclaimed play of the same name, it follows the travails of a group of twenty-somethings as they deal with the onset of their thirties and the pressure to settle down.

 Dancer in the Dark, starring Björk and directed by Lars VonTrier, continues its rounds of the festival circuit with its first Irish screening. Also premiering is Australia's hit of the year, Chopper; Woody Allen's Small Time Crooks; the Ingmar Bergman scripted Faithless; Wong Kar-Wai's In The Mood For Love; and Terrence Davies' The House of Mirth

 Cork's Documentary Panorama headlines with Kevin Macdonald's A Brief History of Erroll Morris: a portrait of the groundbreaking Erroll Morris who changed the face of documentary filmmaking with The Thin Blue Line. Also showing in the strand is Chris Marker's labour of love documentary One day in the Life of Andrei Aresenvitch, and The Alcohol Years about Carol Morley's quest to remember her days as one of the wildest characters on the Manchester music scene.

 The Festival Focus On features the Brother's Quay, the identical twins who moved to London twenty years ago from Pennsylvania, and have since established themselves as master animators and designers. The Brothers will be in attendance for the screening of their latest feature, "Institute Benjamenta". Also featured in the festival is the work of Aadrman Animation, the phenomenally successfully company behind the Wallace and Gromit series and this year's Chicken Run. Three programmes cover their most important works from the three Wallace & Gromit films to the Oscar winning Creature Comforts and underground favourites like Rex the Runt and Angry Kid.

 With a packed programme of features, shorts, documentaries, retrospectives, as well as the launch of Digital Intelligence - a showcase of digital imagery in filmmaking - Cork takes clear centre stage on the Irish film calendar. You can book for the 45th Murphy's Cork Film Festival, which runs October 8^th to 15th, by phone +353 (0)21 4278518 or online at www.corkfilmfest.org.