
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 11thSeptember. It now joins Steve McQueen’s Widows, Damien Chazelle’s First Man and Bradley Cooper’s A Star is Born in the line-up.
TIFF is regarded as one of the world’s most renowned film festivals and is generally seen as a precursor to Oscar season. 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 (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).
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.
Black 47 is released in Irish cinemas on Wednesday 5th September.