Animated short film Wildkind, based on Ciara Tinney’s book of the same name<\/a>, is nominated at the HollyShorts Film Festival and will be screened at the famous TCL Chinese Theatre on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.<\/p>\nWinners are announced at a gala, with several categories carrying Oscar-qualifying status.<\/p>\n
Tinney, a former assistant director on the hit fantasy drama Game of Thrones, is travelling to Los Angeles with her husband and family for the screening.<\/p>\n
She began writing her poem Wildkind after giving birth to her first daughter Adabelle, 11.<\/p>\n
She began to illustrate it when her daughters Fiadh Ros, eight, and Birdie Blue, six, were born.<\/p>\n
The film adaptation, directed by John McDaid, had its world premiere at the Galway Film Fleadh on 13 July, 2025.<\/p>\n
Tinney said they had been “on a little bit of a fun tour around Ireland and through Europe” as the film was on the festival circuit, but the upcoming recognition is “one of the big ones”.<\/p>\n
She said: “It is an Oscar gateway. There are other Oscar gateway ones that we have been selected for, but this is kind of a big one.<\/p>\n
“It’s [an] Oscar and BAFTA qualifier, and so within our category, it’s hilarious kind of competition – we’re up against Spike Lee and Ren\u00e9e Zellweger. Actually, her film screens alongside ours.<\/p>\n
“So, it’s Ren\u00e9e Zellweger’s directorial debut alongside our director, who is John McDaid from Dog Ears animation studio in Derry. So, we’re in great company. It’s a bit of a buzz.”<\/p>\n
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Tinney puts the film’s success down to it being a “universal bedtime story”.<\/p>\n
She said: “We’ve just had interest there from a Mexican film festival who have heard about the film on the circuit and want us to apply.<\/p>\n
“We have translated it already into French and Spanish. It was actually used as part of a French schools programme for a language-learning tool. And then our Irish-language version has been translated into working with Spanish subtitles as well, and so it just seems to resonate.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s such a simple story, and the artistry, the look, is really simple.<\/p>\n
“It’s like a watercolour, and a black-and-white watercolour, very simple, fluid look. And I just think it’s that basic story that I think everybody’s craving.<\/p>\n
“Our kids and ourselves, we’re living so much of our lives in a digital landscape, and everybody is craving to kind of rewild and just reconnect to nature, and that’s the basis of the story.<\/p>\n
“It started as a poem that I had written for my three daughters, and a kind of… a mummy’s manifesto \u2013 ‘How do I want to guide these little humans?’<\/p>\n
“That was kind of our north star… kindness and wildness. And that was what I thought: ‘If we can stick to these two principles, we’ll be okay’. And I just think that resonates.<\/p>\n
“No matter what language, we always say every mummy puts her baby to bed in the same language. It’s just always going to be a language of hope for what’s to come for them.”<\/p>\n
Tinney described the film as a “personal piece” that includes her own voice and those of her mother and daughters, as well as bird song captured from her garden.<\/p>\n
She said it was “quite surreal” but “magic” to see that resonate internationally.<\/p>\n
Director McDaid said Wildkind is “something totally new” for his company, Dog Ears.<\/p>\n
“We’ve normally done commercial animation for broadcast,” he said.<\/p>\n
“So, to create something small, just as a sort of a passion project, and then see it come to life across festivals, and to see the response that it’s had, has been just a really joyful process.”<\/p>\n
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He said he brought Tinney’s book home and read it to his daughters.<\/p>\n
It “resonated with all of them” and the “universality struck a chord with me straight away”.<\/p>\n
McDaid described the film as a “very gentle, understated piece of animation and a piece of poetry” and expressed his shock at its worldwide success.<\/p>\n
“We’re not pushing anything. There’s no special effects here. There’s no big hook that we think might kind of catch somebody’s attention,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The fact that it has, and in so many high-profile festivals all across the world \u2013 I think it’s been selected for Seattle as well, which is the biggest in the USA and the third biggest in the world \u2013 for such a gentle little piece of storytelling, is a gorgeous thing.<\/p>\n
“So, we just continue to kind of be amazed by the life that it’s taken on.”<\/p>\n
The HollyShorts Film Festival runs until 23 August.<\/p>\n
Source: Press Association<\/p>\n
Click here for more movie news.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A filmmaker and mother of three from Co Fermanagh is to go up against Hollywood heavyweights like Spike…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60],"class_list":["post-593059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593059","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=593059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}