LONDON: Riotous Irish film Kneecap has attracted much critical and public acclaim since it debuted at Sundance in January 2024 as the festival’s first Irish-language film, winning the prestigious NEXT audience award.
Its Irish premiere at the Galway Film Fleadh the following July saw it scoop best Irish film, the audience award and the Irish language feature film award.
It was selected also as an entry for best international feature film and best original song at this year’s Oscars (but was unsuccessful in securing a nomination).
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Now Kneecap’s latest film honour comes from Britain, where its writer and director Rich Peppiatt won outstanding debut at the Baftas last month.
The film, which mixes fantasy with reality, tells the hilarious tale of struggling real-life Irish-language rap group Kneecap (who play themselves in the film) as they become the unlikely face of the civil rights campaign to recognise the Irish language – also known as Gaelic.
The bio on the group’s website states theirs “is a voice which comes screaming from the too-often deprived areas of the North of Ireland, speaking in a language which is too-often ignored”.
The social and political impact of the arts and culture has long been established.
Funding is often available for films that support the cultural agenda of nation states, and this plays a significant role in terms of soft power, a concept developed by political scientist Joseph Nye.
Academic Alan Bradshaw’s review captures the complexity of the themes of the film and its attempt to distance younger people – “the ceasefire generation” – from those of us who lived through the period of civil unrest commonly referred to as the Troubles.
The Kneecap rappers are focused on advocating for the rights (cearta) of the people of Northern Ireland.
Their open criticism of British rule, expressed through their music and film led to objections to them receiving public subsidies from the British taxpayer.
However, consideration of the funding for the production reflects the central themes of the film.
Northern Ireland Screen, the BFI, Screen Ireland, Coimisiún na Meán (Ireland’s independent media regulator) and TG4 (an Irish public service broadcaster providing film and television in Gaelic) collectively funded the film, demonstrating the strong creative collaborations that have developed over the past few years across Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and the UK.
While it is not uncommon to see UK-Irish co-productions – ironically, perhaps, the UK and Ireland are largely treated as one territory for film distribution – usually such collaboration is related to the shared use of English.
In this case, Irish language is at the centre of the storytelling, highlighting the contentious history behind this shared use of English.
The Irish language is not just the language in which the story is told, it is at the very heart of the film. In 2020, the Gaelic film Arracht (English title Monster), a story of the Irish famine, was screened in British cinemas and was Ireland’s entry for the 2020 Academy Awards, but it was not nominated for any awards in the UK.
While Arracht dealt with the famine, illustrating the destructive impact of colonial rule on the Irish people, culture and language, in 2022 An Cailín Ciúin (A Quiet Girl) demonstrated the beauty of the Gaelic language and provided many audiences outside of Ireland with their first opportunity to see a film in Irish.
Kneecap shifts the focus forward to contemporary Northern Ireland and the fight to resuscitate and reinstate the Irish language in the six counties still under British rule.
This was eventually recognised in 2022 when the UK parliament passed the Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Act.
The film’s Bafta win and Oscar entry follow on from The Quiet Girl, which made it onto the Academy Awards’ shortlist for best international feature film and garnered Bafta nominations for best film not in the English language, and best screenplay (adapted), in 2023.
Although in terms of pace and energy, Kneecap and The Quiet Girl could not be more different, both films are in the Irish language.
The Quiet Girl earned over US$6.5 million (£5 million) globally at the box office – the first film in the Irish language to break the US$1m mark – while Kneecap has earned US$4.5 million so far.
Kneecap’s Oscar ambitions may have been thwarted, but its success at the Baftas demonstrates the significance of film in terms of reflecting contemporary politics, shining a light on UK-Irish relations and the relevance of Northern Ireland both politically and culturally.
The 1998 Good Friday agreement, brought an end to the Troubles, and addressed the decades of imbalance in the rights of Northern Irish Catholic citizens in relation to governance, civil and political rights as well as cultural rights.
The right to use the Irish language was finally acknowledged as a cultural right and was reinstated as an official language of Northern Ireland in 2022 following the repeal of a penal law from 1737 which established English as the only language permissible in courts.
This fundamental right to your native language is the key theme in Kneecap, focusing on opposing the legacy of British colonial oppression of language and culture.
Its success in receiving public funding, delighting UK critics and audiences alike, as well as winning a prestigious British film award is well worth reflecting upon.
Does this demonstrate that Britain is beginning to recognise the damage of colonialism on the psyche, culture and economics of those who are oppressed and disposed? Is this acceptance of the living legacy of colonialism?
Giving the Bafta for outstanding debut for Kneecap to Peppiatt – an Englishman living in Belfast – can perhaps be seen as the start of such recognition.
But it may be too early for a film opposing colonial British rule to be awarded the award for outstanding British film.