Virgin Media Dublin International Film Festival has announced that Academy Award winning writer-director-producer Adam McKay will receive the Volta Award to mark McKay’s contribution to film. DIFF created the Volta Award in honour of James Joyce who in 1909, opened the Volta Picture Theatre, Ireland’s first dedicated cinema in Dublin. Previous recipients include Daniel Day Lewis, Al Pacino, Kristin Scott Thomas and Thierry Frémaux.
Virgin Media DIFF will hold a special out-of-festival screening at the Lighthouse Cinema on December 16, 2021 of McKay’s much anticipated Netflix comedy, Don’t Look Up, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio. Don’t LookUp tells the story of two low-level astronomers who must go on a giant media tour to warn of an approaching comet that will destroy Earth. The film will open in select theatres on December 10, 2021 and will be available on Netflix from December 24, 2021. The Virgin Media Dublin International Film Festival’s 2022 edition will be held from February 23 to March 6.
Virgin Media DIFF festival director Gráinne Humphreys said, “We are thrilled to honour Adam McKay and his impressive body of work. Adam is such a unique and fearless filmmaker, making difficult yet vitally important stories highly entertaining. As the 2022 festival will present a season of new comedies from around the world, we are delighted to salute and celebrate the creator of Anchorman,The Big Short and his latest brilliant comedy, Don’t Look Up.”
McKay’s most recent feature Vice, starring Christian Bale and Amy Adams, went on to receive eight Academy Award nominations, six Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations, and a DGA nomination for McKay. The WGA honoured McKay with the Paul Selvin Award that recognizes a script that best embodies the spirit of the constitutional and civil rights and liberties. In 2015, McKay and Charles Randolph adapted Michael Lewis’s New York Times best-selling book, The Big Short. Starring Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt, the film went on to receive much critical acclaim as well as Academy Award, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Best Picture and won the 2016 PGA for Best Picture. McKay earned Academy Award, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Best Director, and he and Randolph won Best Adapted Screenplay at the Academy Awards, BAFTA, WGA and USC Scripter Awards.
Other recent work includes his role as an executive producer on Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut Booksmart (2019), Netflix’s hit show Dead to Me (2019), starring Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini, and writer director Lorene Scafaria’s Hustlers (2019), starring Jennifer Lopez and Constance Wu. Upcoming film projects include The Menu, starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult and Ralph Fiennes from director Mark Mylod for Searchlight Pictures; FRESH, starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Sebastian Stan from director Mimi Cave with a screenplay from Lauryn Kahn; and Bad Blood that will tell the story of Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes with Jennifer Lawrence starring.
For television, McKay serves as an executive producer on the hugely popular and award-winning HBO show Succession. McKay directed the pilot for which he won the 2018 DGA Award for Drama Series. The show won the 2019 BAFTA for Best International Series and the 2020 EMMY and Golden Globe for Best Drama Series. Upcoming television projects include the previously announced HBO drama series Untitled Lakers Project, and a limited series based on Miami Herald investigative reporter Julie K. Brown’s book about Jeffrey Epstein. In addition, McKay and Bong Joon Ho are partnering to develop an HBO limited series inspired by Bong Joon Ho’s Academy Award Best Picture Parasite.
McKay’s production company, Hyperobject Industries, has a wide-ranging focus from comedies, dramas, horror, documentaries, and documentary-series, as well as politically charged and challenging subjects with which McKay has become synonymous. Hyperobject Industries develops original podcasts, including Death at the Wing which McKay hosted, and Broken: Seeking Justice with Sony Music Entertainment’s Three Uncanny Four Productions. McKay also executive produced HBO documentaries Q: Into the Storm and 537 VOTES from Billy Corden and Alfred Spellman as well as Painting with John, the unscripted series, created by musician, painter and actor John Lurie.