Irish Folk Furniture, a short film by Tony Donoghue, has won the prize for Best Animation at the prestigious (not to mention cool) Sundance Film Festival in Utah.
Over the course of eight utterly delightful minutes, Donoghue uses stop motion animation and interviews to explore the fate of folk furniture in his Tipperary parish of Terryglass Kilbarron. Sixteen items are refurbished by a skilled local man, and brought to life by Donoghue’s directorial eye and comments from their owners.
Donoghue told the Irish Times that the film was intended to be “pure propaganda” for appreciating these old pieces. From living in London for a number of years, he came to see the beauty in the old furniture found in rural Irish homes, and upon returning to Ireland decided to “investigate Irish people’s relationship with their inherited traditional furniture.” As he explained in an interview with AnOther Magazine, “To my shock I found most people associated this furniture with poverty and didn’t value it at all.”
Irish Folk Furniture makes a very convincing case. Funded as part of the Irish Film Board’s Framework’s short film initiative, it was shot using only a €150 old camera and a digital voice recorder. It will be on YouTube until the close of Sundance, on January 27, and will then be screened at the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival in February.
Watch it now while it’s still available online!
Magnificebt piece of work. Witty, moving and evocative without being sentimental.