05/12/2002

Aisling Walsh’s Song For a Raggy Boy, the true story of one man’s courage to stand up and fight the tough fascist regime in a boys Irish Reformatory school in 1939 has been selected as a competition entrée to the World Cinema section at the next Sundance Film Festival which will run from 16th to 26 January 2003.
The film stars Aidan Quin (Legends Of The Fall), Iain Glen (Tomb Raider) and Marc Warren (Band of Brothers) is a European co-production between Subotica Films in Ireland, Moviefan in Denmark, Zoma Films in the UK and Spain’s Lola Films. It also received financial support from the Irish Film Board, the Danish Film Institute, Zentropa and Eurimages.
Irish producer Tristan Orpen Lynch from Subotica said that Song For a Raggy Boy is a “truly powerful and significant film, and the recognition from Sundance is a very positive indicator of the future for Irish film and its value on a national and international level”.
Rod Stoneman, CEO of the Irish Film Board added: “This is excellent news for the Irish film industry as Sundance is an important fixture on the international festival circuit. Indeed, Bloody Sunday scooped the Audience Award at this year’s Sundance, so to have yet another Irish film in competition in next year’s festival is a major coup”.
Subotica Films was launched three years ago by Orpen Lynch with partner producer Dominic Wright, Ardmore Sound’s Paul Moore and financial consultant David Cooke. In 2001 they produced the TV series Random Passage for Irish state broadcaster RTE and Canadian CBC which recently won two Gemini Awards in Canada, as well as the feature films Night Train with John Hurt and Brenda Blethyn, and On The Nose with Robbie Coltrane and Dan Aykroyd.