How do you undertake an Oscars campaign for an Irish film? quietgirlfilm and ScreenIreland fill us in
If you thought this was the typical journey that a film hoping for the big leagues goes on, then you’ve been missing a whole lot of work that must go son behind the scenes. As the success of the Irish film An Cailín Ciúin shows, getting to the stage where you’re close to an Oscar nomination takes a village, and then some.
Their journey, of course, began with making the film in 2020, during that winter’s lockdown. “I remember someone said to us at the time we’d just locked the film and finished it: ‘You’ve only just started’. Because it’s a huge amount of work that goes on in the publicity and marketing of the film and the distribution of the film,” said Ní Chrualaoi.
The film had its Irish premiere that same month at the Dublin International Film Festival , becoming the first Irish language film to open the festival. This again helped to cement in people’s minds that this was an Irish film to watch out for. It was a challenging year in some respects, because due to the pandemic there were fewer journalists than usual in Berlin, said Ryan, so they had to be “quite innovative”. “Eye-catching assets”, ie visuals to support the social media campaign, were created. A boutique social media agency for the film industry, Alphapanda, in Berlin, was hired with the Screen Ireland funding to do this job.
Between March and the official release of the film in Ireland and the UK on 12 May, they continued to get the word out. ”We worked very hard behind the scenes, especially on our social media, trying to attract as much publicity and keep promoting the film, and keep shouting about anything positive that happened with the film,” said Ní Chrualaoi.
Ní Chrualaoi said that one of the biggest turning points for the film was getting a sales agent, Bankside Films, on board after meetings at the Cannes film market. It sold the film on to Taiwan, South Korea, China, Middle East, Europe and – crucially – the US. Bairéad and Crualaoi hired an award strategist to work alongside them on the film’s Oscar campaign. Were they always planning on such a campaign? “I don’t think we were necessarily planning strictly for that day before we shot the film or anything like that,” said Bairéad.
The work of Oscar campaigning is an area full of secrecy and very strict rules, but the pair behind An Cailín Ciúin demystified some of it. Added Ryan: “An awful lot of the competitors would have billboards all over LA – you need very deep pockets for that, and when you’re a smaller film you have to do things differently, and be more innovative because you don’t have those deep pockets.”
Early endorsements from filmmaker Mark Cousins and actor Fiona Shaw also really helped when it came to approaching festivals like DIFF, said Bairéad. Media figures including Ryan Tubridy, Diarmuid Gavin, Gavin Duffy, and Marian Keyes also posted and spoke of their own volition in support of the film.
They did know that they were, as it’s put, “part of the conversation from early on”, meaning that insiders and the trade publications , had been mentioning the film as a potential Oscar contender. They’ve been keeping an eye on the trade publications who have listed them as a dead cert for a nomination. “But those predictions change week on week, so you know, you can’t really take them too seriously,” said Bairéad. “We’re just crossing everything and seeing where we land.”
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