News

Strong totals for Phyllida Lloyd’s ‘Herself’, animation ‘Wolfwalkers’.

Coming-of-age drama Dating Amber, Element Pictures’ Herself, and Oscar nominee Wolfwalkers are among the best film contenders at this year’s Irish Film & Television Awards (IFTAs).

Element and BBC TV series Normal People leads the overall nominations, shortlisted in 15 categories.

Scroll down for the list of nominations

Nominations across 25 categories in film and TV drama have been announced, with the awards to take place virtually and be broadcast on Virgin Media One on Sunday, July 4.

Across all film categories including craft and technical, David Freyne’s Dating Amber, about two closeted teenagers in 1990s Ireland,...

Irish crime thriller premiered at Dublin International Film Festival.

Paddy Slattery’s Irish crime thriller Broken Law has landed a raft of sales around the world, including to Reel 2 Reel Films for North America.

UK sales agent 101 Films International closed the deals for the feature, which also included agreements for Central and Eastern Europe (HBO), the Middle East (Phoenicia Pictures) and New Zealand (Rialto).

Broken Law world premiered at Dublin International Film Festival in 2020, where it won the Discovery award for debut writer-director Slattery, and was subsequently picked up by Netflix for the UK and Ireland.

Irish filmmaker Slattery...

Sales company 101 Films Intl. has picked up the distribution rights to Paddy Slattery’s debut crime thriller “Broken Law,” and will present it to buyers at the Cannes Virtual Film Market.

The film premiered in February at the Dublin Intl. Film Festival, where it received a Special Jury Prize, voted for by the Dublin Film Critics’ Circle.

“Broken Law” tells the story of Dave Connolly, a respected member of the Irish police, whose loyalty to the force gets tested by his ex-convict brother Joe following a botched robbery. Suddenly Dave finds himself embroiled in a cover-up that leads to a secret relationship with Amia, an unhappily married woman, who also happens to be the victim of his brother’s latest crime.

The film stars Tristan Heanue and Graham Earley, previously seen together in “Cardboard Gangsters,” alongside John Connors (“Love/Hate”), Gemma-Leah Devereux and Ryan Lincoln (“Kissing Candice”).

It was produced by...

Cph:dox, the Danish documentary film festival, has cancelled its opening night gala after Denmark’s government responded to the growing spread of coronavirus by asking organizers to pull events featuring more than 1,000 people. The event had been due to kick off with a screening of Kenneth Sorento’s The Fight For Greenland. The festival will otherwise go ahead as planned, with heightened hygiene procedures, unless the government introduces more severe measures to combat Covid-19, organizers said in a statement today.

This year’s Dublin International Film Festival closed over the weekend, with John Connors’ debut feature documentary Endless Sunshine On A Cloudy Day scooping the audience award. Phyllida Lloyd’s Herself, which premiered at Sundance, closed the festival as a gala screening and also took the Human Rights Film Award. Actor Liam Cunningham received the inaugural Lifetime Contribution Award. Elsewhere, Milje Li’s Confucian Dream won in the Documentary Competition,...

Paddy Slattery’s Dublin-set thriller doesn’t land all of its punches, but its story about cop and criminal siblings has got lots of energy

Here is a lairy Dublin crime melodrama that launches a headbutt at you right out of the screen. Sometimes the punches land and sometimes they don’t. The storytelling is a little elliptical and there are a few EastEnders moments. But this picture from feature first-timer Paddy Slattery has loads of energy and belligerent moxie.

It is the time-honoured story of two brothers on either side of the law. Dave Connolly (Tristan Heanue) is an unmarried cop in his early 30s doing the boring traffic patrol, and wondering if he can ever afford to buy a place; he’s only just moved out of the family home where he’d been living with his widowed mum (Ally Ni Chiarain), who is still agonised by the memory of her late husband,...

Lorcan Finnegan’s ‘Vivarium’ to open 14th edition.

The Dublin International Film Festival (Feb 26 - Mar 8) has launched its 2020 line-up, which includes several world premieres.

The 14th edition of the festival will open with sci-fi thriller Vivarium, directed by Irish filmmaker Lorcan Finnegan. It stars Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg, and played in competition at Cannes Critics’ Week.

Phyllida Lloyd’s Herself, which stars and was co-written by Dublin-born Clare Dunne, will close the festival. The story of an abused mother who fights back against the housing system is set to debut at Sundance later this week.

The line-up, which includes more than 110 features,...

The disttributor was launched by former Element Pictures executives.

Irish distributor Break Out Pictures, launched earlier this year by former Element Pictures execs Nell Roddy and Robert McCann Finn, has acquired a hat trick of titles for release in 2020.

It has bought UK and Irish rights to Peter Mackie Burns’ Rialto from The Bureau Sales. The Ireland-uk co-production premiered at Venice Horizons and marks Burns’ second feature, following Daphne in 2017.

It stars Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as a husband and father who becomes infatuated with a younger man (2017 Screen Star of Tomorrow Tom Glynn-Carney) at a time of personal crisis.

Break Out...

Irish short 'Runner' has wrapped filming in Offaly after receiving funding through a successful campaign on public funding website Fund it. The drama was shot over the Easter weekend and was written and directed by Paddy Slattery of Stand Mantra Productions and produced by John Phillipson of Tusk Productions. The short is expected to run for 15 minutes upon completion of post production.