Lance Daly’s epic feature BLACK 47 has been announced for the Toronto International Film Festival where it will receive its North American premiere on Tuesday 11th September. It now joins Steve McQueen’s Widows, Damien Chazelles’ Neil Armstrong movie, First Man and Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut A Star is Born in the line-up.
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is regarded as one of the world’s most renowned film festivals and is generally seen as an early indicator of Oscar-worthy films. Irish films that screened at TIFF and continued on to Oscar success include Lenny Abrahamson’s Room, John Crowley’s Brooklyn and Nora Twomey’s The Breadwinner while international titles include La La Land, The King’s Speech, 12 Years a Slave, Silver Linings Playbook and Argo.
Black 47 is set during the Great Irish Famine and stars Hugo Weaving (Hacksaw Ridge, The Lord of the Rings, The Matrix), Jim Broadbent (Oscar®winner for Iris) and the prolific Irish screen and stage actor Stephen Rea (The Crying Game, Michael Collins). Joining them are rising international actors James Frecheville (Animal Kingdom, The Drop) and Freddie Fox (King Arthur: Legend of the Sword) along with a strong young Irish cast including Barry Keoghan (Dunkirk, The Killing of a Sacred Deer), Moe Dunford (Michael Inside, Patrick’s Day) and Sarah Greene (Noble, Penny Dreadful).
It’s 1847 and Ireland is in the grip of the Great Famine that has ravaged the country for two long years. Feeney, a hardened Irish Ranger who has been fighting for the British Army abroad, abandons his post to return home and reunite with his family. He’s seen more than his share of horrors, but nothing prepares him for the famine’s hopeless destruction of his homeland that has brutalised his people and where there seems to be no law and order. He discovers his mother starved to death and his brother hanged by the brutal hand of the English. With little else to live for, he sets a destructive path to avenge his family.
Following its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February, the film opened both the Audi Dublin International Film Festival and Belfast Film Festival and was the closing film of the Galway Film Fleadh earlier this summer.
The screenplay was written by PJ Dillon (Rewind), Pierce Ryan (Standby), Eugene O’Brien (Eden) and Lance Daly (Life’s a Breeze, Kisses). Produced by Macdara Kelleher for Fastnet Films with Tim O’Hair, Arcadiy Golubovich and Jonathan Loughran, Black 47 was financed by Primemeridian Entertainment, the Irish Film Board, the Luxembourg Film Fund, Wildcard Distribution, Altitude, BAI, TV3, Eurimages, Umedia, Samsa Films and Fastnet Films.
The 43rd Toronto International Film Festival runs from 6th – 16th September, 2018.
BLACK 47 goes on release in Irish cinemas from Wednesday 5th September.
