IFTA nominated documentary ‘Lorg na gCos - Súil Siar ar Mise Éire’ (Finding the Footprints - A Look Back at Mise Éire) has won a major archive award at the Focal International Awards in London.
In being named ‘Best Use of Footage in an Arts Production’, the TG4 documentary defeated such productions as BBC’s ‘Arena: Dickens on Film’ and Norway’s ‘Liv and Ingmar - Painfully Connected’.
Director Colm Bairéad and producer Cleona Ní Chrualaoi accepted the award in the London Lancaster Hotel, in what are widely considered the most complete archive awards in the world.
This year’s IFTA ceremony also saw director of photography Fergal O’Hanlon nominated for his work on the documentary, which was directed by Colm Bairéad (An tÁdh, Mac an Athar); produced by Cleona Ní Chrualaoi (Ceart agus Coir, The Gathering); and edited by Bernard Clarke (Ó Tholg go Tolg, Ceart agus Coir).
‘Lorg na gCos’ tells the story of Ireland’s most famous documentary film ‘Mise Éire’ through the eyes of its director, George Morrison, key crew members and the Irish people who first experienced it in the cinema upon its release in 1960.
Tens of thousands of people in Ireland, including many who had participated in the Easter Rising, packed into cinemas in the early 1960s to see ‘Mise Éire’, the first ever feature length Irish-language film, which explored three decades of political change in Ireland from the 1890s to 1918.
Co-produced by Midas Productions and Colm Bairéad Ltd, 'Lorg na gCos' was filmed between July and September 2011 in locations around Dublin, Cork, Donegal, Derry and London, and was first broadcast on TG4 in December 2012.
