‘Sacred Sites: Ireland’, a Tile Films production, has scooped a major accolade at the New York Festivals.
The documentary won the Bronze World Medal award in the History/Society category at the ceremony, held at the 2015 NAB Show in Las Vegas on Tuesday April 14th.
Speaking after receiving the award, Producer/Director Stephen Rooke of Tile Films said: ‘We are delighted to receive a Bronze World Medal for ‘Sacred Sites: Ireland’. This is fantastic news, and it shows just how well received this film has been outside of Ireland.’
Chris Hoelzl, Vice President of Program Development at Smithsonian Networks, described the award as ‘very good news’, while Rose Anderson, Executive Director of the New York Festivals called the documentary ‘a beautiful program’.
The documentary was directed and produced by multi award-winning filmmaker Stephen Rooke (‘Saving the Titanic’, ‘Waterways’) and written by David Ryan (‘After Braveheart’, ‘Cromwell in Ireland’). The film is based on Dr Patrick McCafferty’s extensive research into comets, meteors and ancient religion, and benefits from the participation of leading historians, archaeologists and scientists.
Produced for the Smithsonian Channel in 2014, ‘Sacred Sites: Ireland’ gives viewers a new insight into the ancient sacred sites of Ireland – from the passage tomb of Newgrange to the stone circles of Beaghmore in County Tyrone. It explores the idea that a meteor or comet could have motivated great changes in religious practice in Ireland and other parts of the world over the past 5,000 years. Completed in 2014, the show was first broadcast on the Smithsonian Channel last July and rated extremely well. An Irish version, ‘Déithe na Spéire’, was broadcast on TG4 in February 2015.
Tile Films were busy at MIPTV last week, bringing a slate of projects to the market at Cannes. Read more here.