‘Gridlock’ in contention for Oscar after Cork Film Festival win

Irish short film Gridlock is now in contention for an Oscar, after being selected as the Grand Prix Irish Short winner at this year’s Cork Film Festival.

The award was presented ahead of the closing gala screening of the sell-out, A United Kingdom at The Everyman Theatre last night.

Ian Hunt Duffy’s short will now go on the longlist for the Academy Awards in the Live Action Short Film category. The producers also collected €1,500 prize money from Colm Crowley, RTÉ Cork, at the Triskel Christchurch .

Gridlock is a thriller set during a traffic jam on a narrow country road, and the desperate search by a father for his young daughter, after she goes missing from their car.

The winner of the Grand Prix International, Maria Luz Olivares Capelle’s Forest of Echoes (Austria), will also automatically qualify for the Oscar longlist.

Other prize winners included Tatiana Huezo’s Tempestad, who won the Award for Cinematic Documentary, Oonagh Kearney’s Oíche Nollaig na mBan, which won Best Cork Short, and Mike Hoolboom’s Scrapbook, which won Best Documentary Short.

Best Irish Music Video went to Stevie Russell for The Coronas’ ‘The Long Way’, and Best International Music Video to Steven Vander Meer for ‘Boomerang’.