MOVIE NEWS – Much to the credit of the epidemic, Kenneth Branagh has put together his nineteenth directorial feature in eight weeks in quarantine. “It’s true, the gestation period lasted fifty years or so,” the sixty-year-old director told Variety, “There are things that come out of you and when the moment comes, they come out quickly. No other project has ever distracted me. The quarantine was a terrible ordeal for many, but I was lucky enough to get into a creative mode that sucked me in completely.”

Branagh has made a film about his own childhood: the hero of Belfast is a nine-year-old boy whose family wants to leave the Northern Irish capital in a quasi-civil war situation called The Troubles, while the boy wants to stay in his beloved Belfast.

Variety points out that Belfast is a work of art, influenced by works such as Louis Malle’s classic Goodbye, Children and John Boorman’s Hard and Glorious, which are also coming-of-age novels that portray the adult world from the perspective of a young child. And the visual world of Belfast is reminiscent of the work of photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, who captured the natural moments of ordinary people with an unerring eye.

According to Variety, Belfast could be an Oscar contender because of its gold production value, outstanding screenplay and direction, and a cast that (Judi Dench, Ciarán Hinds, Jamie Dornan) could walk away with a statuette.

Also boding well for the film’s chances is the fact that it was critically acclaimed at the Toronto and Telluride festivals, but more importantly, it won the People’s Choice Award. Previous winners of the award, such as The King’s Speech, The Land of the Nomads and The Green Book: A Guide to Life, have confidently marched on to Oscar glory.

(Belfast – domestic release: 3 February 2022.)