With the IFTA Awards just over a week away (May 24), IFTN takes a look at the Best Director Drama category.
Nominated this year are David Caffrey (‘Love/Hate’), Ciaran Donnelly (‘Vikings’), Colm McCarthy (‘Peaky Blinders’) and Dearbhla Walsh (‘Penny Dreadful’).
Nominated for every year since the show’s inception in 2010 (which is five years in a row), David Caffrey’s layered and frenetic direction of Stuart Carolan’s ‘Love/Hate’ has become synonymous with the show’s success as it continues to sell worldwide.
Caffrey won back-to-back IFTA Awards in 2012 and 2013 for his work on the show with his direction of the series labelled by the Irish Times as a “taut and emotionally draining”.
Caffrey has also directed episodes of ‘Raw’ and ‘Line of Duty’ as well as the films ‘Divorcing Jack’ and ‘On The Nose’. He also garnered an IFTA nomination in 2007 for the television mini-series ‘Fallout’.
Nominated this year for internationally renowned series ‘Vikings’ which is shot in Ireland, Ciaran Donnelly has a fantastic pedigree for helming large scale television productions having directed episodes of ‘Camelot’, ‘Crossbones’ and ‘The Tudors’, with the latter project garnering him two IFTA Awards – in 2007 and 2009.
He has also garnered IFTA nominations for ‘Titanic: Blood and Steel’ and the 2006 mini-series ‘Stardust’.
He has also directed three episodes of ‘A.D: The Bible Continues’, a sequel to the hugely popular mini-series ‘A.D’ which is currently airing on NBC in the US.
Celebrating his first IFTA nomination this year is Colm McCarthy. Nominated for his work on British period gangster series ‘Peaky Blinders’ (which stars Cillian Murphy, also nominated this year for the show), McCarthy’s previous credits include British mystery series ‘Sherlock’, long-running BBC show ‘Doctor Who’, the IFTA-winning Irish-shot ‘The Tudors’ and Amazon drama ‘Ripper Street’.
McCarthy garnered a BAFTA nomination in 2003 for the long-running detective drama series ‘Murphy’s Law’ and he will soon begin working on feature film ‘She Who Brings Gifts’ starring Gemma Arterton and slated for a 2016 release.
Celebrating her sixth nomination this year is Dearbhla Walsh. She is nominated for her work on the critically acclaimed supernatural drama series ‘Penny Dreadful’, which is primarily shot in Ardmore Studios in Ireland.
Walsh has garnered a sterling reputation for helming television projects, directing episodes of international series such as ‘Borgia’, ‘The Tudors’, ‘Shameless’ and ‘Little Dorrit’, which won her a Primetime Emmy Award in 2009.
Walsh has previously received IFTA nominations for ‘Imagining Ulysses’, ‘Shameless’, ‘Hide & Seek’ and ‘Little Dorrit’. She won the award in 2010 for directing the television mini-series ‘The Silence’.
The IFTA Film & Drama Awards takes place on Sunday, May 24 with TV3 airing a one hour special on the ceremony on Monday, June 1st.
