Irish short scoops top award

Ken Wardrop’s short film Undressing My Mother, produced by Andrew Freedman, has scooped the European Film Academy Award for Best Short Film at the annual ceremony in Berlin over the weekend, clocking up the 24th Award for the film.

Undressing My Mother is also Ireland’s first short film to receive this prestigious prize.

The successful duo behind the company Venom Film, Wardrop and Freedman, were in Berlin to pick up the award at the ceremony which was attended by the elite of European Cinema including Wim Wenders, Juliette Binoche and Sean Connery.

The European Film Awards aim to promote European film culture and are Europe’s equivalent to the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Awards.

The announcement of this big win follows news that the film has also been selected for competition at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival, which takes place in January 2006. Buena Vista International (Ireland) have also committed to distributing the film in Irish cinemas early next year.

Undressing My Mother was produced at the National Film School, IADT in Dun Laoghaire as the graduate project for Ken Wardrop and Andrew Freedman and was shot on location in the filmmaker’s family home in Portarlington, Co. Laois.

The film’s success is all the more remarkable considering the subject matter of the film -the naked body of the film-maker's mother. The film received completion funding from Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board and has gone on to become one of Ireland’s most successful short films to-date.

The director, Ken Wardrop said: “We are delighted with this latest award and put the success of this film down to the exquisite humour and wonderful honesty of the film’s character, my mother.”

Wardrop and Freedman have co-founded Venom Film and are hoping that the worldwide recognition of this film will increase the prospects of international co-productions and funding opportunities. Venom's success has strengthened their resolve to produce feature films that will make a difference.