Nominations for the inaugural Irish Film and Television Academy (IFTA) Awards were announced at a reception in Dublin yesterday. The ceremony, hosted by Marian Finucane, will be broadcast live by RTE on Sunday, November 28th, and will also be transmitted by the BBC.
Among the films in contention for awards are Dancing at Lughnasa, The General, I Went Down and A Love Divided.
Liam Cunningham, Brendan Gleeson and Aidan Quinn are all nominated in the Best Actor category, while Meryl Streep, Brid Brennan, Julie Walters and Orla Brady are nominated for Best Actress.
The Dublin-based company, Parallel Films, figures strongly in the nominations, with two of the four nominations for Best Television Drama (Amongst Women and Falling for a Dancer) and several other nominations in performance and craft categories.
The Best TV Entertainment category is dominated by comedy, with the Network 2 shows, A Scare at Bedtime, @last tv, and Don't Feed the Gondolas nominated, along with the BBC's Patrick Kielty Almost Live and the last season of Gay Byrne's Late Late Show.
IFTA represents film and television practitioners and interested groups throughout Ireland. Speaking at yesterday's launch, Mr Kevin Linehan, head of variety and children's programmes at RTE, said the awards were "the first time all the broadcasters on the island have come together like this".
The nominations "give an idea of the level of creativity in Ireland at the moment".
The Irish Film and Television Academy chairman, Mr Morgan O'Sullivan, said that the Aisling awards, designed by silversmith Seamus Gill, which will be presented to the winners, "would be awarded by their peers, not unlike the Academy Awards in the US or the BAFTAs in the UK".