FREEZE FRAME Scoops Top Award at International Film Festival
BSE/IFB-backed film FREEZE FRAME received the top honour at the Taormina Film Festival in Italy over the weekend. Irish director John Simpson was awarded the Grand Jury BNL Award for the Best First Film and prize of €25,000. Others honoured by the Taormina Festival for cinematic excellence this year include Roman Polanski, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Dame Judi Dench and Dame Maggie Smith.Established in 1955, the Taormina Film Festival is one of Italy's oldest and most prestigious festivals and has contributed to the discovery of some of the world's most respected filmmakers. Previous winners at the festival include Federico Fellini, Ingrid Bergman, Roberto Rossellini, Tennessee Williams, Cary Grant, Charlton Heston, Sophia Loren, Marlene Dietrich, Audrey Hepburn, Gregory Peck and Joan Crawford.
FREEZE FRAME is a conceptually original and visually distinctive contemporary thriller which stars Lee Evans, Sean McGinley, Ian McNeice, Colin Salmon and Rachel Stirling. FREEZE FRAME is the feature film debut of writer/director John Simpson and was produced by Michael Casey.
Michael Casey was nominated by the Irish Film Board and Northern Ireland Film & Television Commission as Ireland’s Producer on the Move for this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Producers on the Move is an EU initiative in which each European country selects one upcoming producer with undertaking to introduce and help establish them in the international film industry.
FREEZE FRAME opened at selected cinemas on 18 June. FREEZE FRAME is released by Eclipse Pictures in Ireland and Verve Pictures in UK and was co-financed by Bórd Scannán na hÉireann/ the Irish Film Board and Northern Ireland Film & Television Commission with Universal Pictures.
The BSE/IFB funded short film IN SAFE HANDS, directed by John McIlduff and produced by Raw Nerve Productions, is playing in front of FREEZE FRAME nationwide.