{"id":333945,"date":"2026-03-07T15:05:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T15:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/333945\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T15:05:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T15:05:13","slug":"the-irish-film-thats-making-a-big-splash-worldwide-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/333945\/","title":{"rendered":"The Irish film that\u2019s making a big splash worldwide \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Retirement Plan is a simple but beautifully realised animated short film about a man contemplating all the things he will do when he retires. <\/p>\n

He will reply to all those emails he should have replied to, read all the books that he had not read, learn to play the piano and travel to all the places that he had never been to. <\/p>\n

Its creator, director and co-writer John Kelly did not envisage his little film would garner an Oscar<\/a> nomination and a trip to Los Angeles for the Academy Awards. <\/p>\n

Kelly stood on the red carpet with his producer Andrew Freedman at the Aer Lingus booths in Terminal 2 and contemplated how things have changed utterly since Retirement Plan came out last year.<\/p>\n

They will be joined in Los Angeles by Kelly\u2019s wife Jenny and Freedman\u2019s wife Tiffany along with others involved in the film including narrator Domhnall Gleeson<\/a> and co-writer Tara Lawall. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a surreal time for Kelly, who along with being nominated for an Oscar, won a grand jury and audience awards at the South by South West (SXSW). It\u2019s been championed by Disney+ and by the humourist David Sedaris. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not quite touching the floor with my feet at the moment,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s one thing after another that is falling into place.\u201d <\/p>\n

An Oscar nomination was \u201cnot remotely\u201d on his list of motivations for making Retirement Plan, he says. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past, I\u2019ve sort of looked outward and thought, would a film festival like this or would an audience like this? <\/p>\n

\u201cBut with this film, it was really about, would I like this, would my co-writer like this, would my producers like it? <\/p>\n

\u201cWe really focused on stuff that we wanted to see and a particular type of adult animation that you don\u2019t really see that much. It\u2019s grown up storytelling that you don\u2019t associate with cartoons.\u201d <\/p>\n

Twenty years ago he says he would not be flying out to Los Angeles for the Oscars. He would be living there, but times have changed in Irish filmmaking. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe beauty of the landscape now is that you can do anything from anywhere. Certainly, there\u2019s a lot of people, a lot of gatekeepers in Hollywood, but Ireland punches above its weight and animation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s an incredible industry and resources here.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"AA still from Retirement Plan. <\/p>\n

He is now working on another animated documentary called Rat\u2019s Story when he woke up in London with a giant rat in his bedroom. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt has similar themes of anxiety and existentialism with a lot of comedy thrown in.\u201d<\/p>\n

The short form format suits him for the present as it allows him to keep control of his material, but he would like to make a full-length animated film some day. <\/p>\n

He will be joined at the Oscar ceremony by Irish actor Jessie Buckley who is up for best actress in the film Hamnet along with its screenwriter and author of the original novel, Maggie O\u2019Farrell. <\/p>\n

Representatives from Element Pictures which produced Bugonia will be there. It is up for best picture. <\/p>\n

Blue Moon, made by Irish production company Wild Atlantic Pictures, was nominated in two categories, best original screenplay and best actor for Ethan Hawke. <\/p>\n

Perennial Oscar nominee Dublin-born Richard Baneham is up for best visual effects for the film Avatar: Fire and Ash. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Retirement Plan is a simple but beautifully realised animated short film about a man contemplating all the things…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2624,818,93,61,60,116],"class_list":["post-333945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-academy-awards","tag-domhnall-gleeson","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-los-angeles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}