Best of Luck to All the Irish Nominees at this weekends Academy Awards
Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board would like to wish the best of luck to the five Oscar nominees - the three IFB funded projects The Secret of Kells, The Door and Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty and Irish talent Richard Baneham and Peter J. Devlin ahead of this weekend Academy Awards.
Oscar week has provided the Irish based Academy® Award nominees (production companies Cartoon Saloon, Brown Bag Films and Octagon Films) an excellent opportunity to promote their companies and do business in LA. RTE Journalist Philip Bromwell was in LA with them - listen to his report on Morning Ireland.
THE SECRET OF KELLS directed by Tomm Moore and produced by Kilkenny based company Cartoon Saloon is nominated in the Best Animated Feature Film category. Irish short films THE DOOR written and directed by Juanita Wilson and GRANNY O'GRIMM'S SLEEPING BEAUTY written and performed by Kathleen O'Rourke and directed by Nicky Phelan have been nominated in the Best Short Film categories. Richard Baneham has been nominated for Best Visual Effects for his teams work on Avatar and Peter J Devlin in the Best Sound Achievement category for Star Trek.
Cartoon Saloon's THE SECRET OF KELLS, which goes on release in the US this weekend, has already had much success picking up the Jury and Audience Awards in Hungary, Annecy and Edinburgh and appearing on the front cover of the New York Times arts section this week. The animated feature will be competing with Up, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Coraline and The Princess and The Frog for the Oscar.
THE DOOR produced by Octagon Films is based on the true story of a father and his young daughter in Russia in 1986. The film which was produced by under the Short Cuts scheme co-funded by IFB and RTÉ will be up against Instead of Abracadabra, Kavi, Miracle Fish and The New Tenants.
GRANNY O'GRIMM'S SLEEPING BEAUTY is the second Oscar nomination for Irish animation studio Brown Bag Films who were also nominated in the same category in 2002 for Give Up Yer Auld Sins. The short which goes on release in Irish cinemas this weekend with Ondine and Case 39 will compete with the short animations French Roast, The Lady and the Reaper, Logorama and A Matter of Loaf and Death on Sunday. Granny O'Grimm was financed by the Frameworks scheme which is co-funded by the IFB, the Arts Council and RTÉ.
The three Oscar nominated films had a special screening in the IFI this week and the two short films are currently screening in cities across the US and the UK as part of a special Oscar Shorts Programme.
The Academy Awards take place this Sunday 7th March in Hollywood.
Best of Luck to all the nominees!!!