The Irish and the 2010 Oscars

Irish Nominations

Animated Feature The Secret of Kells
Short Film (Animated) Granny O’Grimms Sleeping Beauty
Short Film (Live) The Door
Visual Effects Richard Beneham (Avatar)
Sound Editing Peter Devlin  (Star Trek)

It has been a remarkable year for home-grown talent, with five Irish nominations at this year’s Oscars.

Previous winners have included Glen Hansard for best original song Falling Slowly and Daniel Day-Lewis for his role in There Will Be Blood but this year there is an emphasis on the people who work behind the camera.

Juanita Wilson was very surprised about her nomination. Speaking about her short film The Door she said, “For a small independent Irish film to make its way across the Atlantic is just fantastic” The Door is based on the true story of a father and his young daughter set in Russia in 1986.

The Irish director, who studied in DIT college near the Liberties, has previously produced feature film Inside I’m Dancing. She praised the other nominees this year

“They are all labours of love…our strength is our connection with the subject matter and our humour. Heart is what really shines through on Irish productions”

The Secret of Kells, produced by Kilkenny based company Cartoon Saloon, was nominated in the best animated feature film category.

Director Tomm Moore was ecstatic at the news, speaking earlier he said, “It’s just unbelievable and a real honour to be nominated. It’s been an amazing year for animated film, there have been some beautiful films made and ours probably had a tenth of the budget the others had.”

The mainly hand-drawn film was inspired by the famous, intricate manuscript of Ireland’s finest national treasure- The Book of Kells, housed in Trinity College. It features the voice of Brendan Gleeson with music by Irish traditional band Kíla and finds itself up against big studio productions like Disney/Pixar’s Up! and Henry Selick’s Coraline.

Also nominated was Dublin based Brown Bag Film’s Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty. Written and voiced by comedian Kathleen O’Rourke, the short animation features a grim granny who scares her granddaughter with a grisly re-telling of Sleeping Beauty.

The other nominations are Richard Beneham for visual effects in Avatar and Peter Devlin for sound on Star Trek.

The only disappointment was for Carlow actress Saoirse Ronan who failed to receive a nomination for her role as teenage murder victim Susie Salmon in The Lovely Bones.

The 82nd Annual Academy Awards took place on March 7th in the Kodak Theatre, Hollywood.