seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Tag Archives: Golden Bear


by Leave a comment

Birth of Barry Dignam, Irish Filmmaker

Irish filmmaker Barry Dignam is born in Dublin on March 31, 1971. Some of his films are Stages (1998), Dream Kitchen (1999), Chicken (2001), A Ferret Called Mickey (2003) and Bounce (2004).

Dignam studies drama at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and film at the National Film School of Ireland, part of the Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT). He makes a number of internationally successful shorts including Chicken, Dream Kitchen and A Ferret Called Mickey. His films have been recognised on a global stage, with films screened at prestigious festivals such as the Berlin International Film Festival and the Cannes Film Festival and have been shown at over 150 international festivals and distributed through major broadcasters, on-demand platforms, and theatrical releases. He has been nominated for a Palme d’Or at Cannes and a Berlin Golden Bear. His work has been screened by top broadcasters including Film Four, PBS, Canal+ and have been released on DVD and theatrically in both Europe and the United States.

As a teacher, Dignam has over twenty years of experience working with students and researchers at all levels. At IADT, he serves as the Head of the Department of Film & Media, Chair of Film & Television, and Irish Course Director on the Erasmus+ Joint Master of Art in Cinematography.

In 2021, Dignam becomes IADT’s Programme Director of FilmEU, the European University for Film and Media Arts. FilmEU represents a pioneering approach to arts and culture education, uniting eight higher education institutions from across Europe. FilmEU has grown into a transformative initiative that enhances the academic landscape for film and media while addressing critical societal issues such as sustainability, inclusion, and digital transformation.

Dignam and his partner, Hugh Walsh, are one of the first couples to enter into civil partnership in Ireland, and the first to do so after the mandatory three-month wait (six previous couples are granted exemptions on compassionate grounds).


by Leave a comment

Birth of Jim Sheridan, Playwright, Director & Producer

jim-sheridan

Jim Sheridan, Irish playwright, screenwriter, film director, and film producer, is born in Dublin on February 6, 1949. In the few years from 1989 to 1993, Sheridan makes three acclaimed films set in Ireland (My Left Foot, The Field, and In the Name of the Father) that between them receive a remarkable 13 Academy Award nominations. Sheridan has personally received six Academy Award nominations. In addition to the above-mentioned films, he is also known for the films The Boxer and In America.

Sheridan is born to Anna and Peter Sheridan Snr and raised in the inner city of Dublin. He is the brother of playwright Peter Sheridan. The family runs a lodging house, while Anna Sheridan works at a hotel and Peter Sheridan Snr is a railway clerk with CIÉ. Sheridan’s early education is at a Christian Brothers school. In 1969 he attends University College Dublin to study English and History. He becomes involved in student theater there, where he meets Neil Jordan, who also is later to become an important Irish film director. After graduating from UCD in 1972, Sheridan and his brother begin writing and staging plays, and together found the Project Theatre Company.

In 1981, Sheridan emigrates to Canada, but eventually settles in the Hell’s Kitchen section of New York City. He enrolls in New York University‘s Tisch School of the Arts and becomes the artistic director of the Irish Arts Center.

Sheridan returns to Ireland in the late 1980s. In 1989, he directs My Left Foot, which becomes a critical and commercial success and wins Daniel Day-Lewis and Brenda Fricker Academy Awards. He follows that with The Field starring Richard Harris in 1990, then with In the Name of the Father in 1993, a fictionalized re-telling of the case of the Guildford Four. The film wins the Golden Bear at the 44th Berlin International Film Festival.

In 1996 he co-writes Some Mother’s Son with Terry George. The Boxer, with Daniel Day-Lewis, is nominated for a Golden Globe Award for best film drama in 1997. In 2003, he releases the semi-autobiographical In America, which tells the story of a family of Irish immigrants trying to succeed in New York. The film receives positive reviews and earns Samantha Morton and Djimon Hounsou Academy Award nominations. In 2005 he releases Get Rich or Die Tryin’, a film starring rap star 50 Cent. He is connected with the upcoming film adaptation of Artemis Fowl and is rumoured to have written the screenplay and been asked to direct it.

Sheridan helms the 2009 film Brothers, starring Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal, which is shot in New Mexico. He also directs the thriller Dream House, which stars Daniel Craig, Naomi Watts, and Rachel Weisz.

Sheridan has a wife, Fran, and three daughters, Naomi Sheridan, Kirsten Sheridan, and Tess Sheridan, with whom he has collaborated, most notably with Naomi and Kirsten on the screenplay for In America.