Kings chosen as Irish Foreign Language Oscar entry
Tom Collins’ Kings, starring Colm Meaney, has been selected as Ireland’s entry for best foreign language film at the 2008 Academy Awards, making it the first time that an Irish language film has been entered in the Oscar race.
Kings is adapted from Jimmy Murphy’s play Kings of the Kilburn High Road, in which a group of Gaelic-speaking men who had emigrated to London from the west of Ireland in the 70s reunite for a friend’s wake. As they confront their failed dreams and aspirations, they also come to the chilling realisation that their friend’s death could have been a suicide.
The film had its world premiere at the Galway Film Fleadh in July, and is screening this week at the Toronto Film Festival’s Contemporary World Cinema section.
The film will also be screened in Los Angeles on September 28 to an audience of American distributors, as part of the Director’s Finders Series with a view to securing a US distribution deal for the film.
Newgrange Pictures produced the film with financing from the Irish Film Board, Northern Ireland Screen, BCI and TG4. International sales are being handled by High Point.
Newgrange will release Kings in Irish cinemas on September 21.
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