Kneecap Members, DJ Provaí, Mo Chara, and Móglaí Bap, with director Rich Peppiatt.
Despite extremely warm weather across Ireland over the weekend, audiences flocked to cinemas, with critically-acclaimed independent Irish film Kneecap opening at number three in the Irish box office charts with approx. €292k across the island of Ireland.
Only Hollywood heavy-hitters It Ends With Us and Deadpool & Wolverine were ahead at the box office in Ireland, with big-budget US titles like Trap and Borderlands opening behind Kneecap.
This marks the biggest weekend opening for an Irish film at the Irish box office, including previews, since Academy Award® nominated The Banshees of Inisherin and the biggest box office opening for an Irish language feature film ever. Cinemas across Ireland are expecting the film to continue to perform very strongly, noting overwhelmingly positive word of mouth from audiences.
Kneecap had the widest ever opening of an Irish film in cinemas across Ireland, opening in 109 screens across the island of Ireland.
The Irish Film & Television Academy (IFTA) recently announced that the Irish language feature was selected to represent Ireland in the Oscar® International Feature Film category at the upcoming 97th annual Academy Awards.
The film, written and directed by Rich Peppiatt (One Rogue Reporter) stars the members of the West Belfast rap trio Kneecap (Móglaí Bap, Mo Chara and DJ Próvaí) alongside an ensemble cast including Oscar® nominee Michael Fassbender, Simone Kirby, Josie Walker, Fionnuala Flaherty, Jessica Reynolds and Adam Best.
Set in West Belfast in 2019, when fate brings Belfast schoolteacher JJ into the orbit of Naoise and Liam Óg, the needle drops on a hip hop act like no other. Rapping in their native Irish language, the trio create their own genre of Irish punk rap, melding the Irish and English language with electrifying energy. Their writing and performance reimagine what rap can be as a creative and cultural force, rooted in community. Kneecap ultimately become the unlikely figureheads of a Civil Rights movement to save their mother tongue, upending preconceptions about language and place and spearheading a cultural revival and interest from their legions of young followers.
Kneecap was produced by Trevor Birney and Jack Tarling for Fine Point Films and Mother Tongues Films, with Patrick O'Neill at Wildcard acting as Co-Producer. Funding for the film was provided by Northern Ireland Screen, the Irish Language Broadcast Fund, Fís Éireann / Screen Ireland, the BFI (awarding National Lottery funding), Coimisiún na Meán and TG4, Dias Feld and Kamila Serkebaeva, with backing from Great Point Media.
Curzon will release the film in the UK on Friday 23rd August.
The film had its World Premiere at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival in January this year, where it won a NEXT Audience Award, the first Irish language film to win at the festival. It went on to play at Sundance London, and was the opening film of Galway Film Fleadh, where it won three prizes including the Audience Award.