Teen drama set to sweep the boards at Iftas

The teenage psychodrama What Richard Did has dominated the Irish Film and Television Award (Iftas) nominations which were announced yesterday.

What Richard Did is selected in 10 categories including best film and best director for Lenny Abrahamson. Its two big stars Jack Reynor and Róisín Murphy have been nominated for best actor and best actress respectively.

The announcement is good timing for the film, which opens in UK cinemas this week.

Jack Reynor is the hot favourite to win the Ifta for his performance as a gilded rugby-playing south-Dublin teenager who finds his life turned upside down by an uncharacteristic moment of madness.

Reynor (20) has already been the big winner from the film. Shortly after it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival he was recruited to a Los Angeles casting agency and cast this week in one of the lead roles in the blockbuster franchise Transformers 4.

Abrahamson has moved on to film Frank, a film set in the music world which is currently being shot in New Mexico.

Grabbers, a film about an island people who have to stay drunk to ward off predatory sea creatures, has four nominations as does the Troubles drama Shadow Dancer, also produced by Element Pictures, the producers of What Richard Did.

Death of a Superhero, a film about a 15-year-old boy dying of l cancer, has received three nominations.

Martin McDonagh has been nominated for best director for his film Seven Psychopaths. He was similarly nominated yesterday for the British Academy of Film and Television Awards (Baftas).

Unsurprisingly the RTÉ drama Love/Hate has generated 10 more nominations and is sure to add to the haul of nine Iftas it won for the previous two series. The show’s stars, Robert Sheehan and Tom Vaughan Lawlor, are nominated in the best actor category while series creator Stuart Carolan will be going for a hat-trick of Iftas for best television script.

Over the moon

Moone Boy, actor Chris O’Dowd’s autobiographical take on growing up in Boyle, Co Roscommon, has five nominations.

TV3 is nominated for four awards. Tonight with Vincent Browne and Midweek’s Rural Ireland Fights Back have both been selected in the current affairs category. Also nominated is the decumentary series 24 hours to kill. The Irish version of Come Dine with Me is nominated in the best reality television category.

TV3 had complained previously about being overlooked for awards, but a TV3 spokeswoman said they had resolved their differences with Ifta. The 1 Iftas will take place in Dublin on Saturday, February 9th.