Kirsten Sheridan

Kirsten Sheridan (born July 14, 1976) is an Irish film director and screenwriter. The director of August Rush (2007) and Disco Pigs (2001), Sheridan was nominated for an Academy Award for co-writing the semi-autobiographical film In America with her father, director Jim Sheridan, and her sister, Naomi Sheridan.

Born in Dublin, Sheridan moved to New York City in 1981, spending her early childhood there while her father struggled to make it as an actor and theater director. Her family moved back to Ireland eight years later, whereupon her father found success as the director of My Left Foot, in which Sheridan plays the younger sister of lead actor Daniel Day-Lewis. She studied script writing at New York University in 1993 and went to film school at University College Dublin, ultimately earning her film degree from Dun Laoghaire College of Art and Design in 1998. Her thesis short film Patterns won several international film festival awards, including Clermont-Ferrand, Cork, Galway, Dresden, Aspen, and Chicago, and her next short, The Case of Majella McGinty, about a little girl who escapes her stressful life by crawling into a suitcase, received festival awards at Foyle, Cork, San Francisco, Cologne, and Worldfest Houston.

The first feature film Sheridan directed was 2001's Disco Pigs, Enda Walsh's screen adaptation of his own play, starring Cillian Murphy and Elaine Cassidy as teenagers in a lifelong, obsessive, antisocial friendship. The Guardian described the independent film as a "stylised, hyperkinetic drama ... that combines kitchen-sink realism and vicious fight scenes with highly stylised fantasy sequences". Disco Pigs earned Sheridan nominations for best director at the British Independent Film Awards and the Irish Film & TV Academy Awards, as well as prizes at the Castellinaria Youth Film Festival, the Giffoni Film Festival, the Young European Cinema Film Festival and the Ourense Film Festival.

Next, Sheridan collaborated with her father Jim and sister Naomi on the script for In America, a film based on their memories of their family's years of poverty in New York, with the story of the death of Jim's younger brother woven in as an added element. Jim directed the film, which went on to success and earned several prestigious awards nominations, including an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Sheridan's latest film is 2007's August Rush, which stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Keri Russell as star-crossed lovers and musicians, Freddie Highmore as their orphaned musical prodigy offspring, and Robin Williams as a Faginesque character. The Irish Times criticized the film as "bounc(ing) around between so many forms, moods and genres that it proves impossible to get a handle on," while Variety called it "utterly predictable, but with moments of genuine charm." She has three children.

• The Bench (short, 1995) ... director, writer, editor
• Gentleman Caller (short, 1996) ... director, editor
• Walking into Mirrors (short, 1997) ... director, editor, producer
• Patterns (short, 1998) ... director, writer, editor, producer
• Between Two Worlds (1997) ... editor
• Ward Zone (1998) ... editor
• The Case of Majella McGinty (short, 1999) ... director
• Disco Pigs (2001) ... director
• In America (2002) ... writer
• August Rush (2007) ... director
• Dollhouse (2012) ... director, writer
• Untitled Amy Winehouse Biopic (TBA) director, writer

• "Kirsten Sheridan Filmography", IMDb.com. Accessed 2 November 2007.
• [<http://iftn.ie/news/?act1=record&only=1&aid=73&rid=4284560&tpl=archnews&force=1]

In addition to the accolades listed below, Sheridan has won many awards for her short films.

Academy Awards

• Nominated: Best Original Screenplay (2004), In America (shared with Jim Sheridan, Naomi Sheridan)

Golden Globe Awards

• Nominated: Best Screenplay (2004), In America (shared with Jim Sheridan, Naomi Sheridan)

Irish Film and Television Awards (IFTA)

• Nominated: Best Short Film (2000), The Case of Majella McGinty (shared with producers Siobhan Bourke and Kate Lennon)
• Nominated: Best Director of a Feature Film (2003, January's biennial ceremony), Disco Pigs

Other awards

• Won: Film Institute of Ireland/Guinness Outstanding Young Irish Talent Award (1998)
• Nominated: British Independent Film Awards, Douglas Hickox Award (2002), Disco Pigs
• Won: Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards, Best Writer (2004), In America (shared with Jim Sheridan, Naomi Sheridan)

• ^
• ^ "Kirsten Sheridan Awards", IMDb.com. Accessed 2 November 2007.
• "2004 Golden Globe Nominations", Premiere. Accessed 3 November 2007.
• Stewart, Miriam. "News: Irish Film and Television Academy Awards", Arts Ireland, December 2002. Accessed 3 November 2007.
• "2002 Nominations", BIFA.org.uk. Accessed 2 November 2007.
• "Winners 2003", BFCA.org. Accessed 3 November 2007.