A dramatisation of the 1998 Omagh bombings which left 29 people dead was among five films nominated for a prestigious Irish award tonight.

A top German award, the €10,000 Bernhard Wicki Prize at this year's Emden-Aurich-Norderney Film Festival, has gone to Aisling Walsh's Song for a Raggy Boy.

There has been some good news for Irish film productions today with news Irish films have topped the DVD market.

Aidan Quinn is currently picking up good critical reviews for his performance in the generally released Song for a Raggy Boy, about the abuse of young boys in an Irish reform school in the l930s.

More Irish fans have been heading for the cinema, according to figures released recently.

Another harrowing tale of abject cruelty to youngsters in a Catholic institution, circa l930s; and a film which won high praise at the Sundance Festival almost a year ago.

WITH no title sponsor following the withdrawal of Murphys from the Cork Film Festival two years ago, festival manager Emer O’Herlihy says, financially, this year’s festival is a struggle.

The Irish film Song for a Raggy Boy is off to the famous Sundance Film Festival in January.

Director Aisling Walsh's story of a Spanish Civil War veteran who turns school-teacher - Song for a Raggy Boy - kicks off shooting in Cork in July.