After storming the Oscars the makers of An Irish Goodbye are preparing for what promises to be a rapturous Irish homecoming.
Ross White and Tom Berkeley, who wrote and directed the film, plan to ride its success with a cinema tour of Ireland and Northern Ireland involving gala screenings and events with the cast and crew.
It won best live action short film at the 95th Academy Awards and led to one of the ceremony’s most moving moments when the audience sang happy birthday to its star, James Martin, who had turned 31 on Sunday.
Martin, who has Down’s syndrome, plans to bring his statuette to his drama group in Belfast. When he was born, doctors had told his parents he might never speak.
White and Berkeley are to return to Belfast on Thursday after a “whirlwind” of celebrating and networking in Los Angeles. “Being in those rooms is bizarre, particularly the Vanity Fair afterparty, it was such a small room and it felt like everyone apart from us was stratospherically famous, everywhere you turn you’re setting eyes on one of your idols,” Berkeley told PA Media.
“Luckily we had the boys [their Oscars] with us, so that was a good calling card, that little shiny man is magnetic and people would come over to say congratulations and strike up a conversation with you. People were excited to meet us and hear about what things we wanted to go on and do next.”
The film-makers hope to channel the goodwill into developing fresh projects, he said. “There are lots of things that we want to do. We don’t want this to be the last interaction with this [the Academy Awards]. We want to end up there again.”
An Irish Goodbye was partially crowdfunded and supported by Northern Ireland Screen. It is a black comedy about estranged brothers, played by Martin and Seamus O’Hara, who reunite after their mother dies. It is available on the BBC iPlayer but Oscar success has whetted appetites to see it on a big screen, said Berkeley. “There has been a lot of interest from people asking when they can see the film, so we wanted to give people the opportunity to see it in a cinema.”
Later this year White and Berkeley hope to write a debut feature, he said. “We’re talking about scurrying away to a little remote house to get back to writing.” One project is called The Golden West, about two Irish women who flee famine in 1849 and join a gold rush in the US. “We’re calling it a bit of an Irish western,” said Berkeley.
