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Best film nominees separated into 2019 and 2020 categories.

Tom Sullivan’s Great Famine drama Arracht and Paddy Breathnach’s homelessness story Rosie lead the film nominations at the 2020 Irish Film and Television Academy (IFTA) awards.

Arracht picked up 11 nominations from 15 feature film categories; with Rosie scoring nine.

Full IFTA 2020 nominations below

IFTA is finalising plans for a virtual 2020 awards ceremony in September; there will be no physical IFTA awards ceremony until April 2021. This year’s best film nominees have been split into two categories: five titles are nominated for best film 2019 and a further five have been nominated for best film...

The disttributor was launched by former Element Pictures executives.

Irish distributor Break Out Pictures, launched earlier this year by former Element Pictures execs Nell Roddy and Robert McCann Finn, has acquired a hat trick of titles for release in 2020.

It has bought UK and Irish rights to Peter Mackie Burns’ Rialto from The Bureau Sales. The Ireland-uk co-production premiered at Venice Horizons and marks Burns’ second feature, following Daphne in 2017.

It stars Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as a husband and father who becomes infatuated with a younger man (2017 Screen Star of Tomorrow Tom Glynn-Carney) at a time of personal crisis.

Break Out...

Inkheart’s Iain Softley to direct based on Flann O’Brien short story.

Jason Isaacs, Colin Morgan and Jim Broadbent will star in UK-Ireland black comedy The Dead Spit Of Kelly, which Myriad Pictures has introduced to worldwide buyers here.

Iain Softley will direct from Johnny Ferguson’s adaptation of the short story by Irish writer Flann O’Brien about a taxidermist (Morgan) who kills his cruel boss (Isaacs) and uses his skills to wear the dead man’s skin and live a double life.

The film is a co-production between Grand Pictures (Dark Lies The Island) and Forthcoming Films...

IndieCork’s victors were announced by the festival committee after a screening of Ian Fitzgibbon's comedy Dark Lies the Island. It's a wrap for the seventh edition of the IndieCork Film Festival, Ireland's leading event celebrating the world of independent cinema and music. This edition came to an end with the screening of the closing film, Ian Fitzgibbon's comedy Dark Lies the Island, which took place at the historic Gate Cinema in Cork yesterday. The prestigious Spirit of IndieCork Film Award went to Chiara Viale's debut feature, The New Music. The Italian filmmaker penned and directed the story of Adrian (played by Dublin-born actor Cilléin McEvoy), a talented pianist whose life starts to fall apart after he is diagnosed with Young-onset Parkinson's Disease. Meanwhile, the Best International Short Film Award went to Marion Lacourt's Sheep, Wolf and a Cup of Tea. The 12-minute animated short centres on a boy who summons.

Break Out Pictures launches with four upcoming titles slated for Irish release.

A new Irish distribution company has been launched by former Element Pictures execs Nell Roddy and Robert McCann Finn.

Break Out Pictures launches with four upcoming titles slated for Irish release. As well as distribution, Break Out will focus on event cinema. Roddy and Finn most recently headed up publicity and sales respectively for Element.

This summer the company will release Hugh O’Conor’s coming-of-age drama Metal Heart, starring Jordanne Jones, Leah McNamara and Moe Dunford.

Three further titles are slated for an autumn release, including Ian Fitzgibbon’s pitch-black comedy,...