SAIPAN to have world premiere at major global film festival
SAIPAN, which tells the story of the infamous feud between Republic of Ireland football captain Roy Keane and national team manager Mick McCarthy during preparations for the 2002 FIFA World Cup, will celebrate its world premiere at the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) next month.
The flick will be screening as part of the Centrepiece programme which recognises the best of international cinema. Éanna Hardwicke as Roy Keane in SAIPAN. Pic: WildCard Distribution
The hugely anticipated film about the infamous confrontation sees Éanna Hardwicke take on the role of Roy Keane while Mick McCarthy is played by Steve Coogan.
The film joins the lineup for TIFF's landmark 50th edition, which will run from 4 – 14 September.
Speaking about the world premiere, directors Lisa Barros D'Sa and Glenn Leyburn said: 'Having premiered our last film Ordinary Love at TIFF we are thrilled to be returning with Saipan and are so honoured to be included in the stellar TIFF 50 line up. It is such a special festival to screen and watch films and TIFF audiences are the very best.' View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Extra.ie (@extradotie)
The official synopsis for the film reads: 'SAIPAN is the thrilling story of football player Roy Keane and his manager Mick McCarthy, and the events leading up to Ireland's incendiary 2002World Cup campaign.
'The intense rivalry between these two personalities transcended the game, gripping an entire nation and the sporting world. On the surface, the feud was all about standards, but deep down it was a hugely emotive story of two men whose rivalry and contempt came to surpass the sport they loved. This is the definitive account of one of the most fractious fallings-out in the history of sport.'
Directed by award-winning filmmakers Lisa Barros D'Sa and Glenn Leyburn and based on an original script by Paul Fraser (Heartlands, A Room for Romeo Brass), SAIPAN stars BAFTA nominated Éanna Hardwicke (Lakelands, The Sixth Commandment)as Roy Keane, with two-time Academy Award® nominee Steve Coogan (Philomena, The Reckoning) as Mick McCarthy. Steve Coogan as Mick McCarthy in SAIPAN. Pic: WildCard Distribution
Supporting cast includes Alice Lowe (Sightseers), Jamie Beamish (Derry Girls), Alex Murphy (The Young Offenders), Harriet Cains (Bridgerton)and Peter McDonald (The Batman).
The film is produced by Macdara Kelleher and John Keville for Wild Atlantic Pictures (Evil Dead Rise, Cocaine Bear, Black 47) along with Trevor Birney and Oliver Butler for Fine Point Films (Kneecap, No Stone Unturned) with Patrick O'Neill, Rachael O'Kane, Rupert Preston and Ed Caffrey serving as Executive Producers.
Last year, it was revealed that a mansion on Belfast's northside was used for filming, with the location set up as the house of McCarthy.
Producers Kelleher and Keville previously said: 'A million words have been written about what happened on that fateful week in 2002 on the tiny island of Saipan.
'Next year, audiences will finally get to experience first-hand the feud between Roy Keane and Mick McCarthy and why it was labelled 'the worst preparation for a World Cup campaign ever.''
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Examiner
26 minutes ago
- Irish Examiner
'We just got lucky': Tales from the Cork lads who ran merchandise stalls for Oasis in the 1990s
Morty McCarthy remembers the first time he met one of the Gallagher brothers. It was February 1992, and the Cork man and his band, the Sultans of Ping, were sharing a bill with fellow Leesiders the Frank and Walters at the Boardwalk venue in Manchester. A local lad by the name of Noel popped up during the soundcheck to say hello. He'd been rehearsing in one of the other rooms with an unsigned group he said were called 'Oasis', and wanted to reacquaint with the Franks, a band he'd previously worked with as a roadie. Little did anyone there know that the 'sound' 21-year-old and the four lads banging out tunes in the basement were on their way to becoming the biggest band in Britain. Or that McCarthy would have a front seat on the Oasis rollercoaster. As the Sultans' career plateaued, the Greenmount drummer ended up working with the Manchester band's merchandise material in the era when they exploded onto the scene. His switch of career to the merchandise world originated in his Sultans days when, as the non-drinker in the band, McCarthy was the designated van driver. During a period of downtime in early 1994, he heard that their merchandise company Underworld needed somebody to ferry gear to various gigs. McCarthy signed up, and drafted in his childhood pal Damien Mullally when an opening came up for somebody to look after the company's London warehouse. 'Underworld were probably the biggest merchandise outfit in the UK at the time,' recalls McCarthy. 'We just got lucky, because we all started working literally a couple of months before the whole Britpop thing broke. And Underworld not only had Oasis, they also had Pulp.' Liam and Noel Gallagher messing about at Knebworth in 1996. Mullally and McCarthy enjoyed working in the merchandise, travelling to gigs and making the most of life in London. In true Cork style, they'd even managed to secure jobs in Underworld for a few more of their mates from home. Not that it was all plain sailing. There was still an element of anti-Irish feeling in the UK in the mid-1990s – especially in the wake of the IRA bombing of the Bishopsgate financial district in 1993 – and going around in a van full of boxes meant the Cork duo were regularly stopped and questioned at police checkpoints. 'We also got a bit of it around Abbey Wood where we lived, but things were much better when we moved to Hackney, which was more multicultural,' says Mullally. Meanwhile, between April 1994 and the release of Definitely Maybe at the end of August, a real buzz was building around Oasis. The three singles Supersonic, Shakermaker, and Live Forever, had been hitting incrementally higher chart positions, and the album went straight to number one in the UK charts. The Gallagher brothers had arrived. For the Cork duo, the gigs they worked were getting ever busier, and the few dozen t-shirts and other bits they'd previously sold were now getting to hundreds and even thousands of units. Underworld realised they were going to need a bigger boat. Or at least a decent lorry. This created a bit of a conundrum as nobody in the company had the special licence required in the UK. Step forward the lad with the Irish licence which, at the time, was universal and didn't need the special HGV training. 'I'd never even sat in the truck before,' recalls McCarthy, now 55, of the day they went to hire their new vehicle from a yard near King's Cross. 'I just thought, how hard can it be? We got in and the first thing I did was hit a barrier. I was just thinking 'I'm not going to be able to reverse this. So whatever we do, we'll just have to drive it forward'. I suppose we had this 'It'll be grand' attitude. I wouldn't do it at this age!' Morty McCarthy on a merchandise stall back in the 1990s. Life on the road was a mixture of good fun and hard work. Depending on the tour, Mullally and McCarthy would sometimes be living on the crew's bus, or other times driving to venues themselves. Of course there were some late nights and partying along the way, but the Oasis entourage also had a serious work ethic. 'If everybody knew that did a couple of days off, then there might be a big party and a bit of a blowout. But a lot of the time, people were up early to get set up at the next venue, and working long hours through the day. You wouldn't have been able to do your job if you were partying all the time,' says Mullally, now working at the Everyman theatre in Cork. 'People got on very well on tour. You knew you just couldn't be invading people's private space or doing the langer in any way.' The band themselves travelled in a different bus, but both Mullally and McCarthy recall the Gallagher brothers as being down-to-earth lads who were always pleasant to deal with. 'I think because we were Irish, that helped too,' says Mullally. 'Yes,' agrees McCarthy. 'I even remember Noel joking with us about Taytos and Tanora!' He does recall a friendly disagreement before a gig in Bournemouth when Liam Gallagher fancied his footwear. 'We had this Dutch driver who used to come every week delivering merchandise, and he used to sell Adidas off the back of the truck. I'd bought this pair of orange Adidas. Liam collected Adidas trainers. He was like 'I'm having your trainers.' And I was going no, and he was like '100 quid!'.' While it was predominantly merchandise that kept Mullally and McCarthy involved with Oasis, they also dropped a load of equipment for the band to Rockfield Studios in 1995. Those sessions at the Welsh studio would of course spawn (What's the Story) Morning Glory?,the second album that would propel the band to stratospheric levels of popularity. On the road, part of the Cork duo's job was dealing with the increasing amount of bootleggers who were selling unofficial merchandise near the venues. 'We'd go out to chat to them, and then of course it'd turn out that a lot of them were friends of the Gallaghers from Manchester,' says Mullally. 'They were mostly nice guys so you'd just ask them to push back a bit – 'Just go down to the end of the road to sell your stuff'.' The mid-1990s was an era when everything was paid for in cash. This meant the two Cork lads would sometimes end up with tens of thousands worth of banknotes in cardboard boxes or plastic bags in the back of the truck or in a hotel after a gig. Liam and Noel Gallagher of Oasis arriving at Cork Airport in 1996. Picture: Dan Linehan An event like Knebworth in 1996 – when Oasis played to 250,000 people across two days – created even more issues. 'A few times a day we used to do a cash-run to get the money off the stall. Somebody would come along with a backpack and we'd stuff it with maybe 10 grand in notes," says Mullally. "You'd try to be as inconspicuous as you could walking through the crowd with that on your back, hoping that nobody comes at you.' Knebworth had 'proper' security vans taking the cash from the event HQ, but Mullally recalls the earlier days when himself and his co-worker would have to bank the money. 'You can imagine with all the stuff that was going on at the time, and two Irish guys coming into the bank with 20 grand in cash, sometimes even in deutsche marks if we were after a European tour. They'd be looking at you strangely, and you know that they're just about to push a button. But they might make a few phonecalls or whatever and we'd eventually get it done.' Knebworth is widely regarded as the high point for the band, but McCarthy also has particularly warm memories of the gig they played in his hometown just a few days later. 'I couldn't believe they were actually playing in Cork at that stage,' he says. He drove the truck from the UK via the Holyhead ferry, but as he arrived at Páirc Uí Chaoimh ahead of schedule, they wouldn't let him into the arena. Wary of leaving a truck full of merchandise parked around the city, McCarthy drove it to the seaside village of Crosshaven. 'When I got there I decided I'd leave it at the carpark at Graball Bay. I didn't even know if it'd fit up the hill but I just about managed it,' he recalls. When he went back later that evening to check everything was ok, there was a big crowd of children gathered around the emblazoned truck. 'There was a big mystery in Cork about where the Gallaghers were staying, and the word had gone around that this was their truck. One of the kids asked me 'Are Liam and Noel coming out to play?' I had to shoo them away.' Oasis merchandise has become an even bigger business since the 1990s. Picture: Lucy North/PA Those two Cork gigs were among the final dealings McCarthy had with Oasis. He has since moved to Sweden, where he teaches English, but regularly returns to the merchandising world for tours with various other bands. He's happy the Gallagher brothers are back together, and realises he was part of something special in the 1990s. 'It's hard to explain people the energy in the UK that the Britpop thing had. Musically, I didn't think it was the greatest, but the energy was phenomenal,' says McCarthy. ' I think at the time, the Indie scene was very middle class. But then along came Oasis. We probably didn't realise we were living in a golden era, but we had the time of our lives.'
Irish Examiner
26 minutes ago
- Irish Examiner
Sligo brace takes Keane back to summit
Champion jockey Colin Keane re-established his lead in the title race thanks to a double on Lady Lunette and Antoine De Paris in Sligo, an 89-1 brace which leaves him one ahead of Dylan Browne McMonagle (56-55). A three-time winner last season, the Ray Cody-trained Lady Lunette bounced back to winning form when defying top-weight in the featured Irish Stallion Farms EBF Connacht Oaks, coming from off the pace and staying on strongly to beat Galway scorer Thatwilldoso by two and a half lengths. 'She was the classy filly in the race, but was giving away lumps of weight,' stated Cody. 'But, when things fall her way, she's very good. The ground in Leopardstown the last day was too firm for her and today's small field helped. 'Of course, the man on top (Keane) is a genius and gave her a super ride. Her owner (Karen Curtin) would like to get some black type for her and she's capable of getting it.' Six-time champion Keane had kicked off his evening on board Noel Meade's Antoine De Paris in the Carlsberg Optional Claiming Race, the Elzaam gelding proving a length and a half superior to favourite Tartaraghan. 'He's named after the comedian Noel V Ginnity,' explained Meade, 'We put him in light enough, so he'd have his chance. He's not big but he's genuine enough.' Antoine De Paris was subsequently claimed, for €10,000, by trainer Noel Kelly. Trainer John O'Donoghue is planning a step into stakes company for Felix Somary, an Acclamation colt, following his debut success in the Irish EBF Auction Series 2-Y-0 Maiden. Ridden prominently by Ronan Whelan, the 7-1 shot found plenty in the closing stages to hold the challenge of favourite Raphello by a head. 'He looked professional,' declared the winning trainer. 'I think we'll look at the Killavullan (Group 3, at Leopardstown on October 18) and work back from there. 'He's a big, scopey colt and likes an ease. It was encouraging that he handled the track so well, which isn't easy first time.' Apprentice Gabriella Hill, set to join Stuart Williams in England next week, registered her third success and rode out her 10lb claim when the Henry de Bromhead-trained Trubshaw, in the familiar Dawn Run colours and helped by first-time cheekpieces, captured the Guinness Handicap, battling to beat God The Highness by a head. In a subsequent stewards' inquiry, Hill received a nine-day whip ban (excessive frequency). In Wexford, Patrick O'Brien, handed a 14-day ban in Roscommon on Tuesday, enjoyed better luck when landing the Tote Handicap Chase on Dermot McLoughlin's Finnians Row who held the late surge of Birdsandthebees by a short-head. Narrowly denied, having lost his whip on the run-in, on Birdsandthebees, Peter Smithers bounced back in the featured Traynors Of Wexford Handicap Chase, making all on the Padraig Roche-trained top-weight Outside The Door to repeat last year's win in the race, off an 11lb higher mark. The winner might now be aimed at the Guinness Kerry National at Listowel. Sean Flanagan, just back from Australia, partnered the Jessica Harrington-trained 33-1 shot Ashdale Flyer, a 14-race maiden over hurdles, to land the Treo Eile Beginners Chase on his fencing debut. The Wexford man completed a double when Martin Hassett's mare Bynx, on her handicap chase debut, proved best in the Ladies Day 29th August Handicap Chase. And Andy Slattery struck again in the bumper as Adam Ryan partnered 2-1 favourite Beir Bua to a battling all-the-way victory over the Mullins runner Mahon Falls, the trainer's fifth winner in nine days.
Irish Examiner
26 minutes ago
- Irish Examiner
Ireland looking to bounce back from England defeat against Wales
Ireland Boys' Captain John Carroll says the future is bright as his players were resolute in defeat to England on the second day of the R&A Boys' & Girls' Home Internationals in Cork. A youthful looking Irish outfit battled hard against their more experienced opponents with Isaac Oliver (5&4), William O'Riordan (3&1) and Caelan Coleman (3&2) grabbing three precious victories in the afternoon singles. It was a tough day for the combined Irish side, with England claiming a 14.5-6.5 win and while they turn their attentions to Scotland and a winner-takes-all clash tomorrow, Ireland will face Wales looking for more positives. 'It was always going to be tough. We came here knowing that England are probably the strongest of the four home nations but we gave it a good go,' said Carroll. 'We have picked a very young team with a view to giving them experience for next year, we had a disappointing European Championships in Czech Republic where we got relegated to Division 2. 'Hopefully these 16-year-olds, and in one case a 15-year-old, will get the experience to get us back up next year to Division 1. We have got one more chance against Wales so hopefully we will get a positive result tomorrow. Barry O'Connell (Douglas) takes a shot. Pic: ©INPHO/Tom O'Hanlon 'They are a great bunch of lads, I took over as Captain last November and I have had the best time. Fantastic group, there is never an issue with them, travelling around France, Scotland, England, Spain, all over Europe. 'A great crew, they have built up a great bond and they are a young team. This year wasn't their year but hopefully next year and the year after will see a big improvement. 'Our girls will go out first (against Wales), our girls have been flying, they came third in the European Championships getting a bronze medal, doing the country proud. 'We have got some fantastic girl golfers, they will be leading us out first thing in the morning and then the boys will be out afterwards. 'Hopefully we can reverse the result from today and get a win tomorrow.' Ireland had two victories in the morning foursomes today with Hannah Lee-McNamara and Zoe McLean-Tattan, and Caelan Coleman and Harry O'Hara winning their matches. However, they fell 4.5-2.5 behind and England took control early in the afternoon singles. Scotland also secured their second straight win on Wednesday after a comprehensive 15-6 defeat of Wales. The Scots were 5.5-1.5 ahead following the morning foursomes and won nine of the singles matches to keep their campaign on track. 'Delighted with that, I thought today would be a really tough game and it was but the troops have come through again. Some great golf out there from both teams and very happy to win,' said Scotland Captain Stuart Johnston. 'That (England) will be tough obviously, they are a good team. They have got a lot of great players so we will just go out and do our best, take it match by match. 'If we prevail then that is fantastic, if we don't then we will give it our best shot.'
