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Breaking ‘Kneecap’: How a Music Biopic Born From an ‘All-Night Bender’ Became One of Ireland’s Most Important Films (and a Likely Oscars Contender)
How 'Kneecap,' the wild, drug-soaked music biopic that broke out in Sundance, could be Ireland's most important film in years and an Oscars contender
Within days of the Sundance premiere, the right-wing paper posted an angry story online attacking the use of public money to fund the biopic of a rap group “accused of glorifying the IRA and stoking sectarian hatred.” But Peppiatt asserts that his Englishness “makes us Teflon,” arguing that any time the film is described as “anti-British” they can simply point to the fact it was written by a Brit. The band initially rose to fame in 2017 when one of the main Irish radio stations banned their track “C.E.A.R.T.A.” for “drug references and cursing,” while they sparked more headlines in 2022 thanks to a mural they painted on a Belfast wall of an armored police Land Rover on fire (a move that provoked frothy-mouthed outrage from unionist politicians). Kneecap’s tireless co-manager Peadar Ó Goill (who is also the main driver of the RUC jeep and a film director in his own right) says he was instantly drawn to the trio “because they’d never sell out.” In Sundance, it was rumored that they had been quietly asked to “tone down” some of the political messages, especially with regards to Palestine, until the contract had been signed with Sony Pictures Classics.
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