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Wicked actor Bowen Yang and US actor and comedian Rachel Sennott hosted the announcement of the 97th Oscars nominations over in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Los Angeles today. The ceremony, which had been delayed due to the wildfires, was live-streamed across the globe with cinephiles and aspiring nominees all tuning in to hear who had made the cut this year.
2024 was a phenomenal year for the Irish film industry with Oppenheimer picking up a total of 13 nominations – including one for Best Actor for Cillian Murphy. Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things followed closely behind with 11, the highest number of Academy Award nominations ever received by an Irish-produced film. Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe and the team at Element Pictures have collaborated with the Greek director on several projects.
Last year brought the number of Academy Award nominations to have been received by Element Pictures since it was established in 2001 to 26 – a level of critical success unique in Ireland and rare across Europe. Element Pictures headquarters is based on O’Connell Street in Dublin, and they also have offices in both Belfast and London.
This year, there were four Irish films in contention for nominations, including Kneecap, the Belfast-based rap trio’s self-titled film, The Apprentice (which was partially produced by an Irish production company), Room Taken—on which Colin Farrell served as an executive producer—and Portia A. Buckley’s Clodagh.
Predominantly as Gaeilge, Kneecap was written and directed by Rich Peppiatt, and is a slightly fictionalised version of how the group was formed and rose to fame across the country. All band members star as themselves with Josie Walker, Fionnuala Flaherty, Jessica Reynolds, Adam Best, Simone Kirby and Michael Fassbender in supporting roles. I went to see the film when it first came out, left the cinema and immediately Googled online Irish classes. If you haven’t managed to watch it yet, expect sex, drugs, bad language and plenty of new favourites to add to your Spotify playlist.
It was one of 15 films vying for a nomination in the Best International Feature Film category and the second-ever Irish language film to be shortlisted (the first was An Cailín Ciúin). Sadly it wasn’t to be for the trio, though they have a busy award season ahead of them with both the IFTAs and the BAFTAs still to look forward to.
As previously mentioned, Donald Trump’s biopic, The Apprentice, was co-produced by Irish company Tailored Films – one of three production companies involved in the film. Sebastian Stan stars as the man himself while Succession’s Jeremy Strong plays Roy Cohn, a significant figure in Trump’s early career who served as his lawyer, mentor and political “fixer” in the early 70s and 80s. The film was shortlisted in the Best Make-up and Hairstyling Category, however, while it wasn’t successful in that category, Stan was nominated for Actor in a Leading Role. Other nominees include Colman Domingo for Sing Sing, Adrien Brody for The Brutalist, Timothée Chalamet for A Complete Unknown and Ralph Fiennes for Conclave.
Room Taken and Clodagh narrowly missed out on nominations for Best Live Action Short with this year’s nominees including A Lien, Anuja, I’m Not A Robot, The Last Ranger and The Man Who Would Not Remain Silent.
On the inspiration for her film, director Portia A. Buckley told IMAGE.ie that the framing, composition and lighting of Clodagh were “massively influenced” by a Vermeer exhibition she saw in Amsterdam prior to shooting. “Vermeer’s depiction of women in service, off-centre, while their service was centrally framed, presented as a virtue, was something that I felt connected with the character of Mrs Kelly. The story itself centres around the magic of a young girl, who changes a work-orientated woman’s life. Retrospectively, I realise that the script was written in tandem with the birth of my own child, and the profound experience having a baby had on my own life and worldview.”
You can see the full list of nominations for the 96th Academy Awards below.
Photography by @kneecap32.
