Irish documentary ‘Marathon Men’ has won the special jury award at the 36th Rassegna Cinematicrafica Internazionale film festival in Italy.
Co-Directed by Marc O’Gleasain and Marcus Stewart, ‘Marathon Men’ is a new feature documentary from Irish production company Earth Horizon telling the story of two men and their dream to run 32 full marathons in 32 consecutive days, one each of the 32 counties of Ireland.
In 2010 Gerry Duffy and Ken Whitelaw embarked on this challenge – their aim to inspire people all over the country to come out and run their first ever marathons and to raise funds (over half a million Euro) and awareness for Autism Ireland. The film follows over two years of planning and months of exhaustive training for this unprecedented test of endurance.
The ‘Rassegna Cinematicrafica Internazionale film festival’ is the world’s oldest sports film festival and is held annually in Palermo, Sicily. Speaking at the awards co-director Marc O’Gleasain said: “It’s been such a joy to share Gerry and Ken's inspirational story 'Marathon Men' with cinema goers here in Palermo. It was an honour just to be nominated with our first feature length documentary, I’m delighted to receive this award on behalf of all involved.”
‘Marathon Men’ had its world première at the Los Angeles All Sports film festival last November and Irish premiere at the IFI in December.
The film was shot by DoP Raja Nundlall, produced by Marcus Stewart and edited by Marc O’Gleasain. The music was composed by Fergus Ryan, production manager was Cillian Mcloughlin and sound mixing took place at Gorilla Post, Dublin.
