Emma Donoghue on the Room with a different view

Irish writer Emma Donoghue tells Helen Barlow how her hit film about incarceration was more inspired by her own experiences of motherhood than the Fritzl case

WHEN Room took the people’s choice award at the recent Toronto Film Festival, it was clear that this was the first foray for a film you’ll be hearing a lot about over the next few months.

As director Lenny Abrahamson stood for photographs on the red carpet with his fellow Dubliner, Emma Donoghue, who wrote the screenplay adaptation from her bestselling 2010 novel, the buzz was building for a film several critics have already tipped for Oscar nominations.