Dan Ireland, Canadian-born American film producer and director, Died at 57

  Dead Famous

Dan Ireland was born on May 11, 1958, and died on April 14, 2016.

He was a film director, producer and co-founder of the Seattle International Film Festival.

Mr. Ireland started out his career in 1976 by co-founding (with Darryl Macdonald) and running the Seattle International Film Festival from 1975-1986.

The duo, Ireland and Macdonald left from Vancouver in their late teens to take on the task of creating the festival, and opening a first run art theatre.

In his job, he was responsible for co-booking the prolific World Premieres the festival launched, including Joel and Ethan Coen’s Blood Simple, Richard Rush’s The Stunt Man, Irwin Kirshner’s The Empire Strikes Back, Ridley Scott’s Alien, Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist, Marek Kanevska’s Another Country, Carl Franklin’s One False Move, and the American Premieres of George Miller’s The Road Warrior, Alan Rudolph’s Choose Me, Hector Babanco’s Kiss Of The Spider Woman, Akira Kurosawa’s Ran, Paul Verhoeven’s Soldier of Orange, Spetters and The Fourth Man.

During 1983, Dan was awarded the coveted Golden Calf Award (the Dutch equivalent to the Academy Award) for his contribution to advancing Dutch Films in the United States.

Ireland’s friendship with director Verhoeven helped save the distribution in America for the director’s breakthrough US film, the World War II saga, ‘Soldier of Orange.’

Dan Ireland passed away at 57 yrs old.