THE 2016 Academy Awards are barely over but Irish films are already in contention for next year’s Oscars. Sing Street, written and directed by John Carney, is being tipped as a nominee in the 2017 best original song category. The Lobster, an Irish co-production starring Colin Farrell, is also considered a contender in several categories.
Sing Street is Carney’s follow-up to Once, which won the Best Song Oscar in 2008, and Begin Again, the Keira Knightley film nominated in the same category in 2015. His latest film focuses on teenagers in 1980s Dublin, and features original compositions by Carney, Gary Clark, founder of 1980s band Danny Wilson, and Glen Hansard, The Frames frontman.
Hollywood trade paper Variety said the story of a boy who starts a band to impress a girl had several numbers worthy of a nomination. “A couple of best song nominees could come from John Carney’s Sing Street, a musical rock valentine set in 1980s Ireland. Carney’s Once won this category in 2008 for Falling Slowly, and the soundtrack to Sing Street is just as catchy,” it said.
Bustle, an entertainment website, and Newsday, a New York newspaper, also tipped Sing Street for an Oscar nod. Newsday said this was: “Thanks to original music by Scottish songwriter Gary Clark, a veteran of the 1980s who fronted the overlooked pop band Danny Wilson.”
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Rafer Guzman, the film critic for Newsday, said Sing Street’s focus on 1980s-style music would go down well with Academy voters. “For a long time, the Sixties were the soundtrack and it was the baby boomers who held all the power in the Academy,” he said. “I think now those folks are ageing out and the Eighties contingent is starting to have the stranglehold over popular culture. It strikes me that if someone could come up with great Eighties-type pop songs, and if one of them really sticks, you might have a shot at an Oscar.”
Sing Street had its world premiere at the Sundance film festival, the starting line for several Oscar nominees such as What Happened, Miss Simone? and Brooklyn. After the screening of Carney’s film, the actors gave a live performance of a couple of songs from the film — the same approach taken by Hansard and Markéta Irglová after Once played at Sundance in 2007. Sing Street opens in Ireland on March 17, and in America in April.
Among the original song contenders for 2017 are A Beautiful Sea, Brown Shoes, Go Now and The Riddle of the Model. The Lobster, filmed in Kerry, is also being tipped for Oscar nominations by Hollywood Reporter and Digital Spy, including one for Farrell’s performance. The film was scheduled for a US release this month but has now been acquired by A24, which released several of this year’s Oscar-nominated films, and will have its date pushed back. This should make it more appealing for next year’s Academy Awards.