Christmas TV debut for Derry film

‘An Béal Bocht’ (The Poor Mouth) was produced by local producers Pearse Moore and Tom Collins and animated by John McCloskey through their Nerve Centre based production company, Raw Nerve Productions.

The animated film has generated a lot of interest at film festivals, winning the Best Animated Debut as well as the Don Quixote For Animation Award at the Galway Film Fleadh in July this year and, most recently, the Best Animated Film at the 30th Foyle Film Festival.

By winning best animation at the Foyle Film Festival, which is an Oscar-qualifying film festival, ‘An Béal Bocht’ has automatically qualified for Oscar consideration in the short animation category in 2019.

The animated film - a biting satire of the life story of a young Gael reflecting on his life from Sligo Gaol - stars Seán Misteál, Donncha Crowley, Tommy Tiernan and Bob Quinn.

‘An Béal Bocht’ (The Poor Mouth) is the 1941 novel in Irish by Strabane-born Brian O’Nolan (Flann O’Brien), published under the pseudonym “Myles na gCopaleen”.

It is widely regarded as one of the greatest Irish-language novels of the 20th century.

This animated adaptation is the first time that the book has been brought to the screen and is also the animated debut for critically acclaimed feature film director, Tom Collins.

‘An Béal Bocht’ is a co-production between award-winning animation production company Raw Nerve Productions and De facto Films.

Principal animator at Raw Nerve is Bafta nominated animator, John McCloskey, who took the role of animation director working closely with Tom Collins.

Tom Collins has been producing and directing award-winning feature films and documentaries since ‘Hush-a-Bye Baby’ in 1988.

During his career, he has had the unprecedented distinction of being twice nominated as Ireland’s entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards for his films ‘Kings’ (2008) and ‘The Gift /An Bronntanas’, in 2014.

He has produced or directed 13 documentaries and feature films including ‘Bogwoman’, ‘Dead Long Enough’, ‘Teenage Kicks - The Undertones’ and ‘The Boys of St Columb’s’.

In 2015, he was awarded the prestigious Life Time Achievement award by the Directors Guild of Ireland for his “Outstanding contribution to Irish Filmmaking”

‘An Béal Bocht’ will have its TV premiere on TG4 on Christmas Day at 5.25pm.