News Item

From Special Irish Fest "The Envelope, Please" Correspondent Ronan Collins:

Irish Language Film Put Forward For Oscar


"An Irish language film has been submitted for an Oscar for the first time ever, it emerged today.

IFTA, The Irish Film and Television Academy, announced that 'Kings' was officially selected for submission for the Best Foreign Language Film category to the 80th Academy Awards.

The American Academy accepts one foreign language film from each eligible country for consideration under this prestigious category and will announce its selection of five foreign language films that will compete for an Oscar in January.

Written and directed by Tom Collins – and starring Colm Meaney, Donal O’Kelly and Brendan Conroy – Kings is a story of a lost generation, rich in humanity and emotion.

Shot in Belfast, London and Dublin in 2006, the €2.2m feature film tells the moving story of a group of young men who in the mid 1970s left the west of Ireland, bound for London, filled with ambition for a better life in a place where they could be kings. Thirty years on they meet to mark the passing of the youngest of the group.

Aine Moriarty, IFTA CEO, said the organisation was proud to submit the very first Irish language film to the Academy Awards in Los Angeles.

“Kings is a powerful and moving story that transcends its native language and can communicate universally with its raw and honest storyline,” she said.

“I commend Tom Collins for his dedication to this film as gaeilge and I have no doubt that Kings will stand it’s ground in the foreign language film category in Los Angeles and that it will be well received by audiences throughout the world.”

Mr Collins said to receive the latest accolade is overwhelming.

“I know it’s always dangerous to have messages in films, but I hope people will watch Kings and empathise with the whole experience of emigrants in a foreign land and how hard it is for them to find their way home,” he said.

“This is a universal story – it’s not just about paddies.”

The film screens at the Toronto Film Festival Contemporary World Cinema section today, and will be released across Ireland on September 21."