Jane Moore reports from London

KNEECAP HAS MISSED out on the award for ‘outstanding British film’ at the Baftas, but director Rich Peppiatt scooped the award for ‘outstanding debut by a British writer, director or producer’.

The film, which is a dramatised depiction of the rise of the Belfast rap trio of the same name who find themselves inadvertently becoming the face of a movement to preserve the Irish language, lost out to Conclave in the category recognising best British film. 

The papal thriller, adapted from Robert Harris’s 2016 novel, stars Ralph Fiennes as a cardinal who is tasked with overseeing the election of a new Pope while experiencing his own crisis of faith. 

Lisburn-born Nick Emerson also won the ‘best editing’ Bafta for his work on the film, which is thought to be a strong contender for the Oscars next month. 

Musicians Mo Chara (Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh), Móglaí Bap (Naoise Ó Cairealláin) and DJ Próvaí (J.J. Ó Dochartaigh) made their acting debuts in Kneecap, which also stars Michael Fassbender, Simone Kirby, Jessica Reynolds and Fionnuala Flaherty.

Accepting the award for outstanding debut at the Royal Festival Hall in London this evening, Peppiatt said he was “absolutely honoured to be standing here”. 

“Fifteen years ago today, I actually met my wife and a decade later, she convinced me to move to Belfast. Within two weeks of moving to Belfast, I met Kneecap, and now I’m standing here,” he said. 

It’s more than a film. It’s a movement and it’s about how everyone should have their language respected, their culture respected and their homeland respected. 

“This award is dedicated to everyone who is out there fighting that fight.”

Kneecap was nominated for six Baftas overall. It also missed out on the awards for film not in the English language, original screenplay, casting and editing. 

Since its release last year, the film has enjoyed continued success. It dominated at the British Independent Film Awards, taking home seven awards, including Best British Independent Film and Best Debut Screenwriter for its writer and director Rich Peppiatt. 

On Friday, the film also took home four Irish Film and Television Academy (Ifta) awards for Costume Design, Editing, Casting and Best Director for Peppiatt.

It was named on the shortlist for Best International Feature Film and Best Original Song for the Oscars, but missed out on a nomination. 

Speaking on the red carpet before the ceremony, Peppiatt said that despite the disappointment of missing out on an Oscar nomination, the band and those involved in the film have a lot to celebrate.

“The film has had so much success that you can barely look at it and go we fell at the final, the biggest hurdle of them all. We are very proud of what we have done,” he said.

“When we set out to make this film, we just wanted it to be a film that the people in the north of Ireland would enjoy.

“That’s it and the fact that it has found a global audience and we have travelled all around the world with it is something far beyond what we could have fathomed and it has been a great experience over the last year. We will have a lie down now.”

After forming in 2017, Kneecap gained acclaim for their blend of Irish and English rap about the realities of growing up in post-Troubles Belfast. It was first featured on Irish radio by late-Raidió na Gaeltachta broadcaster Rónán Mac Aodha Bhuí.

The film is hard to put a label on due to its unique storytelling. There are hints of Trainspotting in its energy and depiction of sex, drugs and politics. In one scene, we see Gerry Adams appear to the group in a ketamine-fuelled hallucination. In another, there’s a chase involving Orange Men and a Union Jack baton. 

‘Punky, bold and outrageous’

The black comedy also tackles the problematic legacy of the Troubles and their impact on the ‘ceasefire babies’ who inherited it. While the conflict ended, the signs of what came before remained.  

It has not been without its controversy, and was even involved in a funding dispute with the former UK government when then-business secretary and now Tory leader Kemi Badenoch reversed a decision to award them a £14,250 (€17,127) funding grant. Kneecap filed a legal challenge – and won.

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Ultimately, the film is a love letter to the Irish language and cultural preservation. “For many years, I think there’s been waves of stories coming from Ireland, and in some ways, they respond and react to what’s gone before,” Gráinne Humphreys, executive director of the Dublin International Film Festival, told The Journal. 

“What’s been wonderful to see about the Irish language wave of films is the brilliance of the acting and the stories, and the way in which An Cailín Ciúin took on this massive position and space in people’s hearts, not just in Ireland, but internationally.

“I feel like Kneecap is just leading into responding, reacting and going in a completely different direction.

‘You think that this is one kind of Irish language cinema? Well, here’s a completely different version of it’.

“It’s punky and loud and bold and outrageous. With the exception of Michael Fassbender and some other members of the cast, for the most part, it’s about three non-actors. It’s very definitely a kind of two fingers and a deliberate provocation to a particular kind of storytelling.

“There’s definitely a youth and an energy to it, there’s a newness, a contemporariness about it. There’s an anger, there’s a sense of fun that maybe is sometimes absent from some of our films and people are just responding to that.”

Humphreys said the film benefited from having its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival last year, becoming the first ever Irish language film to do so and taking home the Audience Award at the event.

“I think going to Sundance made people think it was cool. People saw it premiere there, thought that it was one of the breakout hits, people were interested in seeing it,” she said.

My mum went to see it, and I did not expect my mum to say that she would go to see Kneecap, but in her words: ‘Everybody was talking about it. I had to see what they were saying’.

Humphreys pointed out that many people who were unfamiliar with the group or their politics were also drawn in by a “very clever marketing campaign”, the critical response, and the idea that they would go to the cinema and have a good time.

“I think people forget that. Film is an art form, it’s an industry, but it’s also entertainment, and I think the thing about Kneecap is a lot of people came out and wanted to see it again immediately. They wanted their friends to see it. That kind of word of mouth is really important.”

With reporting from Press Association