Oscar nod for Cavan man
A Cavan film director is doing his best to keep the lid on his Oscar expectations despite his documentary claiming a top prize at one of the world’s most illustrious film festivals. There are two ways that a film can become an Academy Award contender - by having a week long screening in either New York or LA, or by winning an accredited International Film Festival.
Ciaran Cassidy has just achieved the latter - for the second time - with his film 'The Last Days of Peter Bergmann’ winning the Best Documentary Short Film Award at this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF),
Although he wasn’t at the Melbourne screening to collect the award.
“The film has exceeded our expectations,” enthused Ciaran.
This latest award follows the film’s success at the Nashville Film Festival, where he scooped the Grand Jury Prize.
A thrilled Ciaran says the film, with a budget of just €15,000, has had “a life of its own” since its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival - where less than one per cent of films submitted get shown.
“You get these frantic messages from Croatia from someone who’s meant to be screening it the next day, but they can’t find their copy of it and want it immediately - I didn’t know it would be screening there.”
Oscar judges will draw up a long-list of 10 this Autumn, before whittling it down to five at the time of the nominations. “I got an email just today from Melbourne that your Academy Award nomination, or whatever, and just when you see it like it’s very weird and surreal. I wouldn’t get too excited about it one way or another, because you are just setting yourself up for disappointment.”
The film, which was funded as part of the Irish Film Boards Reality Bites Scheme, has so far screened at over 25 festivals worldwide after its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.
The film follows a man who arrived in Sligo in the summer of 2009, over his final three days, he would go to great lengths to ensure no one would ever discover who he was or where he came from.
Showcase
MIFF is the largest film festival in both Australia and the southern hemisphere, and is Australia’s largest showcase of new Australian cinema. As of 2013, the festival is accredited by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Australian Film Institute and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.
The film's director, Ciaran Cassidy, is currently in pre-production on feature documentary 'Jihad Jane: Dangerously Seeking Marriage’, a film about three 'fundamentalist terrorists’ seeking love and marriage in a one bedroom apartment in a small town in Ireland. The film will be produced by Fastnet Films along with Silverosa Film in Sweden and Helsinki Film in Finland.
Watch the trailer for Bergmann here