Dream homecoming for Oscar-winning producer

An Irish producer said tonight he was delighted to bring back the country’s first Oscar for 14 years.

The short film Six Shooter was the first Irish film to triumph at the annual Hollywood awards ceremony since Neil Jordan’s The Crying Game, which won the Oscar for best screenplay in 1992.

As the cast of Six Shooter publicly displayed the Oscar in Dublin tonight for the first time, the film’s producer John McDonnell said it was a great boost for the industry.

“It’s playing on the world stage and it doesn’t get any bigger than the Oscars. So to have won one is great for us, it’s great for the film and it’s great for Irish films as well,” he said.

The short film, which is due to be released on DVD soon, stars Brendan Gleeson as a grieving widower who meets a talkative young man (Ruaidhri Conroy) on an Iarnrod Eireann train.

Its success has led to director Martin McDonagh being offered a three film deal.

Mr McDonnell has been given the Irish Film Board’s Producer on the Move award to help him establish links with business partners in the international film industry

He said the Oscar would make it easier to raise funds for films in the future.

“Obviously it’s a huge advantage to have it and I hope it will help with the projects I’m developingand that it opens more doors now than I would have been able to open two months ago.”

But he added that it was important to remember that Six Shooter was still a short film.

“What everyone’s aiming for now is to win (an Oscar) for a feature film,” he said.

During his 20 years in the film business, he worked on films such as Into the West, Braveheart and In the Name of the Father before founding his own company, Fantastic Films, in 2000.

He is currently co-producing A Tiger’s Tale, which stars Brendan Gleeson and Kim Cattrall of Sex in the City fame.

“Brendan plays two roles, himself and a mysterious doppelganger.

“The film is about himself and his dopplganger, how that unwinds,” said Mr McDonnell.