Report by Brad Balfour
Film: “Kneecap”
Director/Screenwriter: Rich Peppiatt
Cast: Naoise Ó Cairealláin (“Móglaí Bap”), JJ Ó Dochartaigh (“Dj Provaí”), Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh (“Mo Chara”), Michael Fassbender, Josie Walker, Simone Kirby
Initially I didn’t expect to see much at this year’s Tribeca Festival. Now in its 23rd year, the event, running from June 5-16, has evolved from the Tribeca Film Festival which had been founded in the wake of 9/11as a way to draw crowds back to downtown. In the aftermath of this attack by Muslim extremists, the Festival sought not only to reignite interest but to reinvigorate creative passions for the city to unify people uptown, downtown and world wide.
As it established itself as an institution, it incorporated most of the arts and the social scene of New York City, moving beyond its original mission. It also became unwieldy and bloated, running nearly two weeks, engaging every level of social status and sort of art-making from film to gaming. In acknowledging the change, it became the Tribeca Festival.
Such an amalgam of the arts, it made this festival worthy of renewed consideration and the natural place to showcase such a film as the hybrid production of “Kneecap.”
This 2024 comedy drama showcases the rise of this Belfast-based hip-hop trio which had a dynamic premiere in NYC , first with a screening of the Sundance Award winning film, and then with a short live performance in a Brooklyn venue, Baby’s All Right. It is in competition in this year’s Festival.
“Kneecap” stars the band members as themselves, as well as Irish actor Michael Fassbender (who plays a fugitive IRA member who also happens to be one of the band’s dad). The film debuted at the Sundance Film Festival on January 18, 2024, the first film in the Irish language to do so.
Set in West Belfast, the film depicts how Kneecap came to be formed and how its unique sound of rapping in Gaelic developed. In fact, the movie’s undercurrent describes the battle to legalize the speaking and teaching of Gaelic in Northern Ireland. For its advocates, this conflict was part and parcel of the same battle to unify the island.
While the band are cast as themselves, they really are making their acting debut as well in this unique and spectacular collage of a documentary and fictionalization which tells of their origin in 2019 and evolution into regional stars. Director Rich Peppiatt interspersed fictionalization with the real as a pastiche in order to serve the dramatic storytelling. The band is featured alongside experienced Irish actors such as Fassbender, Josie Walker and Simone Kirby. Principal photography took place on location in Belfast in May 2023.
When the film premiered in the Next section at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival (the first film primarily in Gaelic film to do so — it’s mostly seen with subtitles). After viewing such a quirky and passionate film, Sony Pictures Classics acquired distribution rights for North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Turkey and the Middle East — the first out of Sundance 2024. Sony has scheduled its theatrical release in the United States later in August, 2024. It was also the opening film at Sundance’s London edition on June 6, 2024 and is scheduled to be released in the United Kingdom and Ireland this August.
There is one more screening at Tribeca Fest: Thursday, June 13 – 9pm AMC 19th St. East
For tickets, go to: https://tribecafilm.com/films/kneecap-2024