Rich Peppiatt’s Kneecap to screen as part of SXSW Festival Favorites strand this March
Posted: 8th February 2024
Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland is delighted to congratulate Rich Peppiatt and Irish production companies Wildcard and Fine Point Films, as Irish co-production Kneecap has been announced to screen at the 2024 South by Southwest Film and TV Festival (SXSW) this March. The film will screen as part of SXSW's Festival Favorites strand, which celebrates acclaimed standouts from festivals around the world.
Kneecap was the first non-US film to ever be selected for the NEXT section of the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, where it went on to win the Audience Award in that strand - the first Irish-language film ever to do so.
Based on the origin story of the riotous and ground-breaking Irish-language rap trio Kneecap, the film stars the band’s Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí in their acting debuts alongside Academy Award® nominated Michael Fassbender (Steve Jobs, 12 Years a Slave), Simone Kirby (Hidden Assets, Jimmy’s Hall), Jessica Reynolds (Outlander), Fionnuala Flaherty (Ros na Rún) and Josie Walker (Belfast, The Wonder). Set in west Belfast in 2019, it chronicles how fate brings the trio together and how they then go on to “change the sound of Irish music forever”.
Founded in 1987, SXSW is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas, United States. An essential destination for global professionals, the festival celebrates the convergence of the interactive, film & television, and music industries. Previous Irish films to have screened at the festival in recent years include Antonia Campbell-Hughes' It Is In Us All, Brendan Muldowney's The Cellar and Kieron J. Walsh’s The Racer.
Kneecap was produced by Jack Tarling and Trevor Birney for Fine Point Films and Mother Tongues Films, with Patrick O’Neill at Wildcard acting as Co-Producer. Funding for the film was provided by Northern Ireland Screen, the Irish Language Broadcast Fund, Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland, the BFI (awarding National Lottery funding), Coimisiún na Meán and TG4, with backing from Great Point Media. The film was acquired by Sony Pictures Classics for North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Turkey and the Middle East, and will be released in cinemas by Wildcard and Curzon later this year.
SXSW 2024 will take place from 8th-16th March. More information about the programme is available here.