A decade ago, as that year’s Oscar nominations were announced, the Irish film industry reeled back at hitherto unimaginable success. Two domestic titles, Lenny Abrahamson’s Room and John Crowley’s Brooklyn, were nominated for best picture. “Ireland collected more Oscar nominations this year than Paramount and Universal Studios combined,” the Los Angeles Times noted.
More than a few pessimists wondered if this might prove to be a freak result, but 10 years later the word “unprecedented” is less visible in reports on yet another year of Oscar plenty. Jessie Buckley, from Kerry, is nominated in best actress for Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, and is strong favourite to become the first Irish woman to take that prize. Element Pictures, the Dublin-based production company who brought Room to the Oscars, celebrated four nominations for Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia. Irishmen Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe, the firm’s co-founders, are, as producers of the film, among the nominees listed for best picture.
John Kelly’s Retirement Plan is up for best animated short. Richard Baneham is nominated in best visual effects for Avatar: Fire and Ash. There were two nominations for Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon, largely shot in Ireland with the participation of Wild Atlantic Pictures. Maggie O’Farrell, author of the source novel for Hamnet, is nominated in best adapted screenplay.
All this follows a run of intervening success that, in 2023 alone, saw Irish talent and films clocking up 14 nominations. Screen Ireland has played a key role in building the appreciation of Irish cinema. The Section 481 corporation tax credit remains a boon. “It’s cheaper to bring one hundred American people to Ireland than to walk across the lot at Fox, past the sound stages, and do it there,” actor Rob Lowe said last year.
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Only a small portion of Irish film professionals find themselves anywhere near the Oscar conversation and low-budget filmmaking remains an unforgiving struggle. But the publicity helps broadcast the domestic industry’s success to the world. The 2016 triumph was no freak.
