The National Film School in IADT has announced that Irish director Paddy Breathnach will speak as part of its National Film School Series on April 4th.
Paddy Breathnach started his directing career making natural history documentaries. His first feature, Ailsa, won the Award for Best First / Second Film at the San Sebastian Film Festival. His second feature I Went Down (BBC films) starring Brendan Gleeson, also won the New Directors prize at the San Sebastian Film Festival in 1997. I Went Down screened at Sundance in 1998 and won the Best Director awards at Thessaloniki and Bogota Film Festivals. He produced SouthPaw, a feature documentary that was selected for Sundance in 1999 and got a US and UK theatrical release.
Breathnach then went on to direct Blow Dry (Miramax), which was released in 2001. His next film was Man About Dog, produced by Robert Walpole and Simon Channing Williams (The Constant Gardner). It was released in 2003 and became one of the most successful independently produced Irish films.
He has also directed a number of horror films including Shrooms (2006). In 2012 he completed the feature length documentary An Oiche a Gineadh m’Athair for TG4. He is a board member of The Dublin International Film Festival and is vice chair of The Screen
Director’s Guild of Ireland. He is also on the board of the Irish Film Institute.
His latest feature, the IFB-supported Viva (2016) was Ireland’s entry for best Foreign Language Film for the Academy Awards last year.
The event will be held on 4 April at 6pm in Room QS144, NFS Building in IADT.