The RTÉ drama Love/Hate and teen crime psychodrama What Richard Did were the big winners at last night’s Irish Film and Television Academy (Ifta) awards in the Convention Centre Dublin (CCD).
Love/Hate added to its already considerable haul of Iftas by winning five more. Creator Stuart Carolan won his third successive Ifta for writing the script of Love/Hate. “I’m going to put it in the middle between the other two,” he joked. “I’ve texted my mother the word ‘hat-trick’.”
Tom Vaughan Lawlor, who sounds nothing like his alter-ego Nidge, won for best actor in television drama. “I feel like one of the luckiest actors in the world to play this part,” he said and dedicated his award to his wife Claire.
What Richard Did, the film about a gilded south Dublin rugby playing teenager who gets in trouble, also won five awards.
Lenny Abrahamson, who is just back from New Mexico where he has been filming Frank, won for best director while the film’s star Jack Rayner, who was there with his new girlfriend Madeline Mulqueen, won for best actor.
He dedicated his award to amongst many others his mother, “who gave me the freedom to achieve my dreams” and his five and six-year-old siblings at home. “I love them so much”.
Rayner’s star turn has already made him one of the hottest properties in the movie industry and he has been cast in the lead role in the next Transformers film.
However, he lost out in the Rising Star category to Kerry director Gerard Barrett who made his first feature film Pilgrim Hill for €4,500.
What Richard Did’s writer Malcolm Campbell won for best screenplay.
The best documentary went to Mea Maxima Culpa – Silence in the House of God about protests by four institutionalised deaf men against sex abuse in the Catholic Church. The award was dedicated to former Irish Times journalist Mary Raftery.
The best current affairs programme when to BBC Spotlight for Sean Quinn’s Missing Millions.
The best sports programme went to When Ali Came to Ireland about Muhammad Ali’s famous visit to Ireland in 1973.
Among those present after a rollercoaster and exhausting week were Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore and the Minister for Transport and Tourism Leo Varadkar who confessed to watching very little television because of his hectic schedule.
