Irish Animation to Represent Ireland in the White House on St. Patricks Day
Irish Oscar nominated animators Nicky Phelan and Tomm Moore have received an invitation from the White House to attend the St Patrick's Day celebrations planned there. Phelan directed the hilarious short film ‘Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty', whilst Tomm Moore directed the beautiful Irish feature film ‘The Secret of Kells'. Both projects were Academy award nominated in 2010 and were produced with financing from Bord Scannán na hÉireann / Irish Film Board.
Commenting on the invitation Director Nicky Phelan said "It's a great honour to receive the invitation. I'm proud to be representing the team at Brown Bag Films, and the Irish animation industry as a whole. The companies here are creating high profile work for a global audience, so this acknowledgement is very welcome, and again a great honour."
The pair are expected to join Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny and other Irish guests, when they meet Barack Obama and his wife Michelle in Washington next week.
ABOUT TOMM MOORE & CARTOON SALOON
Tomm Moore co-founded Cartoon Saloon animation studio in Kilkenny with Paul Young, Ross Murray and Nora Twomey in 1999. Tomm co-wrote and directed The Secret of Kells which went received an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature last year. The film was also selected for the Generation K Plus section of the Berlin Film Festival and Tomm Moore was the winner of 'The Directors Finders Series' which resulted in The Secret of Kells being showcased in the Director's Guild of America Theatre in L.A to an audience of American distributors and industry personnel in 2008. Tomm was also named Director of the Year at Cartoon Movie in Lyon, France. Cartoon Saloon develops and produces feature film and TV series projects while producing award winning short films, television commercials, graphic novels and children's books. Their first TV series, the IFTA award winning Skunk Fu! sold to broadcasters in over 120 countries worldwide. In 2009 Tomm also produced the IFB short animation Old Fangs and is currently developing his second feature film The Song of the Sea.
ABOUT NICKY PHELAN & BROWN BAG FILMS
Nicky currently works as a Director in Brown Bag Films, and has directed numerous shorts, commercials and TV series. His series, ‘Crap Rap', was accepted into Cartoons on the Bay and Annecy, where it was nominated in the Best Television Series category, and was short listed for the Prix Jeunesse Awards. ‘Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty' was nominated for Best Animated Short Film Academy Award in 2010 and won a host of international awards that year. He is currently working on a number of projects with Brown Bags Films. Brown Bag Films® is an award-winning animation studio, producing high quality computer animation for the international market. In 2009, Brown Bag Films ® delivered 26 hours of animation to international broadcasters and was voted the European Producer of the Year at the Cartoon Tributes, Norway.