The Irish in Film Rule 2018

Martin McDonagh and Saoirse Ronan continue to dominate the 2018 awards season, with McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri claiming the British Academy Film Award for Best Film and Best Original Screenplay and the Irish Film and Television Award for Best International Film. Ronan took home the IFTA for Best Actress thanks to her performance in the much-lauded coming-of-age story Lady Bird, exactly ten years after she was named IFTA’s Rising Star of 2008 for her first major role in Joe Wright’s Atonement.

The IFTAs also saw Dubliner Aisling Walsh’s touching love story Maudie pick up three awards, including Best Director for Walsh, and fellow Dubliner Barry Keoghan went home with Best Supporting Actor in a Feature Film for his role in Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Killing of A Sacred Deer.

In the upcoming Academy Awards, both Lady Bird and Three Billboards are nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. Ronan and Three Billboards star Frances McDormand are also nominated for Best Actress. McDormand’s co-stars, Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell, received nominations for Best Supporting Actor. ♦