Thanks to Mon for the heads up.

Thanks a lot to Jessica for the heads up.

ACTRESS Saoirse Ronan has been transported back in time to appear in some of the best-loved Irish films from down the years.

The time travel — with the help of some digital special effects — was done to promote the Irish Film Institute Archive Preservation Fund yesterday.

The fund was set up to raise €300,000 to ensure the storage and preservation of historically important Irish films.

As part of the launch, Saoirse starred in a promotional video that sees her digitally placed in some of the best-loved film moments, including scenes from ‘Once’ and ‘My Left Foot’.

The Carlow actress also appears in documentary footage such as the arrival of JFK at Dublin Airport and the GAA All-Ireland finals.

“The written word can be powerful and beautiful — but films transport us to another place in a way that even the most evocative words never can,” she said.

“If we lose our films we lose that other place forever. The IFI Irish Film Archive urgently needs your support to save and preserve our film heritage.”

The IFI stores 27,000 cans of film and 10,000 broadcast tapes in climate-controlled surroundings.

The collection represents every decade since the first Irish cinema opened in 1909, with the oldest feature film preserved being ‘Lad from Old Ireland’ dating from 1910.

However, the space in the IFI stores has reached capacity and the institute needs to raise €300,000 to build an Irish Film Archives Preservation and Research Centre to protect film collections at risk of deterioration if not stored properly.

Donations will be accepted through www.ifi.ie or in person at the IFI in Temple Bar, Dublin.

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Thanks to M for the heads up.

Wild Bunch acquired overseas rights to Violet & Daisy, the directorial debut of Precious scribe Geoffrey Fletcher that was screened as a work in progress at Toronto. Wild Bunch will sell at AFM while CAA handles domestic rights. Fletcher wrote the script and produced with Bonnie Timmerman. The film stars Saoirse Ronan, Alexis Bledel and James Gandolfini. John Penotti and James Skotchdople are producing. Ronan and Bledel play two teen assassins who face off against a series of adversaries, including a mysterious man (Gandolfini). Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Danny Trejo also star.

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Saoirse attended the London premiere for “In Time” earlier this day. We added the first released photos in our gallery.

Gallery Link:
Public Appearances from 2011 > 10.31.11: In Time London Premiere

Jennifer Lawrence got her pick of leading men, and now it’s Saoirse Ronan’s turn. The next highly sought after project for young actors everywhere is alien invasion actioner “The Host”, based on the novel by Stephenie Meyer (she also wrote some vampire books you may have heard of). Andrew Niccol is set to direct Ronan as Melanie Stryder, a young woman whose body is invaded by an alien “soul” named Wanderer but whose will to survive is so strong that she refuses to vacate and thus co-exists with two personalities inside one body.

There are two male leads in the film – to form that inevitable love triangle – and Variety reports eight of Hollywood’s hottest rising stars are gearing up to test opposite Ronan in the coming days. Liam Hemsworth, Kit Harington, Max Irons and Jai Courtney are testing for the role of Jared, Melanie’s boyfriend, while Dane DeHaan, Thomas McDonnell, Augustus Prew and Jake Abel are up for the role of Ian, a young man part of Melanie and Jared’s small pocket of human resistance, who falls for the alien soul residing inside of Melanie’s body.

• Liam Hemsworth is perhaps most familiar with this process after successfully beating out a number of fellow up and comers to take the role of Gale opposite Jennifer Lawrence in “The Hunger Games.” His bulk and menacing appearance certainly fits Jared’s character

• Kit Harington plays Jon Snow on HBO’s “Game of Thrones” and has been venturing into a film career lately, most recently becoming a finalist for David Dobkin’s “Arthur and Lancelot.” We are big fans of Harington but really feel he would be a more fitting Ian than Jared. His inclusion on the Jared list is curious…

• Max Irons played good-guy Henry to Shiloh Fernandez’s bad boy Peter opposite Amanda Seyfried in “Red Riding Hood” and while we thought he might end up as the big breakout actor from that film, he has been conspicuously missing from casting news since.

• Aussie Jai Courtney popped up on our radar when he landed a pivotal role in “One Shot” opposite Tom Cruise. Courtney previously starred on Starz’s “Spartacus: Blood and Sand” with late fellow countryman Andy Whitifield, who took Courtney under his wing and got him his start in the industry.

• One of our favorites, Dane DeHaan, has been landing one high profile role after another lately. After breaking out on HBO’s “In Treatment” and “True Blood”, he quickly joined the casts of “The Wettest County in the World”, “The Place Beyond the Pines” and will headline upcoming sci-fi thriller “Chronicle.”

• Thomas McDonnell played the bad boy anti-prom guy in Disney’s “Prom”, then went on and landed something much bigger, as a younger Johnny Depp in Tim Burton’s vampire saga “Dark Shadows”, based on the classic soap opera.

• Someone who hasn’t been on our radar previous to now is Augustus Prew, who starred with Zach Efron in “Charlie St. Cloud” and played Prince Alfonso on Showtime series “The Borgias.” Must admit, though I was an avid fan of the show, I couldn’t tell you who Prince Alfonso was.

• Jake Abel has appeared in teen friendly action fare like “Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief” and “I Am Number Four” and has one advantage over his competitors, having already appeared onscreen with Ronan in Peter Jackson’s “The Lovely Bones.”

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Saoirse attended the opening of The Lir held at the National Academy of Dramatic Art, Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland on last Friday night.

Thanks to Jessica for the tip.

SHE’S maturing into one of Hollywood’s hottest young properties — but don’t expect teen Irish star Saoirse Ronan to grow up too quickly.

The Lovely Bones and Atonement actress has no plans to shed her clean-cut image by shooting a love scene.

And the 17-year-old, who is starring in Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson’s new movie The Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn argues that risque roles are very rarely necessary.

Speaking to the Herald, the Oscar-nominated actress admitted that when choosing her roles she was always very conscious that some scenes were just added to make things edgy.

“I’d definitely be cautious about it,” said the Carlow teenager.

“A lot of it is unnecessary. I do read a lot of scripts where it’s just put in there for the sake of it, really, to make things more edgy when it doesn’t need to be.

“For me it’s always about the story. It has to benefit the story in some way and if it doesn’t then I think there’s no need to do it,” she said.

But one thing Saoirse will be embracing is her fashion sense. The Irish star has been tipped to become the face of a new fashion range in the next year, after wearing a range of Burberry dresses at red carpet events last year.

Although she remained tight-lipped about any future fashion campaigns, Saoirse admitted she was making great contacts in the fashion industry.

“I would only be a style icon because of my stylist Grace Moore. She’s Irish and she helps me with everything. But I do really love fashion and I’m definitely getting more interested in it as I get older. I’m developing relationships with designers as well,” she explained.

The Hanna star made the comments while hosting the Irish premiere of the Tintin movie. Saoirse introduced special guests on Sunday evening at the Savoy cinema on O’Connell Street.

The actress, who previously worked with Jackson on The Lovely Bones, revealed that she speaks to the famous director all the time. “I’m here mainly because I’ve worked with Pete before and he asked me to open it. I’m still in touch with him all the time. I was only talking to him today and I told him I was coming out for the premiere and he was pretty happy about it,” she said.

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Thanks to M and Jessica for the videos of Saoirse at the Tin Tin premiere.

Please click here for another video.

Saoirse was a guest at The Late Late Show with Danielle Ryan and Charlene McKenna last week to talk about the LIR Academy. The episode aired October 21st. Be sure to watch the interview below. Thanks Bryce for the tip.

EDIT: Screencaps have been added to the gallery.