An Irish Goodbye has won best live action short film at the 95th Academy Awards. The win, coming after Kenneth Branagh's Belfast won the Best Original Screenplay'award in 2022, means Northern Ireland has won Oscars for two years in a row.
An Irish Goodbye tells a story of two estranged brothers – one with Down’s syndrome, played by James Martin – who come together after their mother’s death to try to fulfil their mother’s “bucket list” with her ashes before they sell off the family farm.
It was shot on location in Londonderry, Templepatrick and Saintfield and also stars Seamus O’Hara, Paddy Jenkins and Michelle Fairley.
The directors of An Irish Goodbye led a chorus of Happy Birthday for the film’s star James Martin as they collected their award. The dark comedy set on a farm in Northern Ireland has already won best British short film at the Baftas. James had previously said that having his birthday coincide with this year’s Oscars ceremony was like “a Cinderella story”.
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Taking to the stage, Ross White said: “Thank you so much to the Academy for this incredible honour, and thank you to our fellow nominees, all the nominees, for your work. It inspires us so very much. Thank you to everybody back home in Northern Ireland who helped us make this. We wish we had the time to list you all here but you know who you are. There is something very important we would like to speak about as well.”
Tom Berkeley added: “This award is actually the second most important thing about today because it is this man’s birthday. He is out here in Hollywood wearing a leopard print suit jacket. We would love to use the rest of our time up here to sing for James.”
Liverpool FC manager Jurgen Klopp had wished the directors “good luck” at the event, and invited them to his office to admire each other’s trophies. Ross White, who alongside Tom Berkeley directed the feature, shared a video message sent to him by Liverpool manager Klopp in which he brandished a statuette of Bill Shankly, a former boss at the club, with an inscription reading “He made the people happy”.
He captioned the video: “Team talk from the gaffer ahead of today’s #Oscars @TheAcademy. Huge thanks to the legend that is Jurgen Klopp for taking the time and to my amazing Dad for pestering @LFC to make this happen.”
In the clip, Klopp exclaims “and the Oscar goes to” before adding: “Congratulations for what you have already achieved. Winning a Bafta award is massive.”
Klopp added that despite not being in the film industry he watched a lot of movies “so I am on the other side of the screen and I admire good film-makers a lot”.
“If Ross especially – I think he is a Liverpool supporter – wants to touch this once, he is invited to my office and then we can maybe exchange,” he added.
“No, I would never give that away but at least we can touch. You can touch this, I can touch the Oscar.
“So I wish you all the very, very best. Good luck and don’t forget, you will never walk alone.”
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