February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Production duties kept Sheridan busy in the intervening years, as his prolific Dublin-based film company, Hell’s Kitchen, shot a trilogy of features based on real-life characters and events, “Agnes Browne,” “Borstal Boy,” and last year’s critically acclaimed “Bloody Sunday.”
“In America” earned standing ovations at the Toronto premiere for its child stars, Sarah and Emma Bolger, and went on to receive critical acclaim in Ireland during the summer. Fox Searchlight held back the U.S. release date of “In America” until Thanksgiving to give the film maximum exposure at the start of award nomination season.
Sheridan’s previous films “In The Name Of The Father” and “My Left Foot” earned 13 Oscar nominations between them and a pair of statuettes for the lead actors of the latter film, Daniel Day-Lewis and Brenda Fricker.
“In America” is Sheridan’s most personal film to date, and the writer/director maintains the autobiographical theme for his next project, “44,” based on the best-selling memoir of the same name written by his brother Peter. “44” recounts the Sheridan boys’ upbringing in the tough inner-city neighborhood of Sheriff Street, and their subsequent forays into the world of Dublin theater as students in the 1960s.
The director is also working concurrently on a screenplay about a fictitious Irish-American family that plays a dynastic role in the politics of this country in the first half of the 20th Century. Not the Kennedy clan, he insists.
Michael Gray
mgray@irishecho.com