Skintown, the latest feature by Kieron J.Walsh, has won the Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence at this year’s Edinburgh Film Festival.
Walsh’s Skintown beat out nine other features in the EIFF competition. The prize comes with £50,000 to support future projects. Skintown follows best friends Vinny and Jonty who party, cut deals and plan to escape small-town life in Northern Ireland during the 1994 ceasefire.
Edinburgh’s Thelma Schoonmaker Prize for Short Filmmaking Excellence was won by Sindha Agha’s Grief Room. The film comes with a £15,000 cash prize to support future projects.
Grief Room is described as a story about estranged sisters who reunite at their mother’s deathbed.
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This year’s EIFF ran from 13 – 19 August and opened with the International Premiere of Edinburgh-born filmmaker Louis Paxton’s debut feature, The Incomer, and closed with Louise Lockwood’s debut documentary feature Bel.
Discussing this year’s event, EIFF CEO and Festival Director, Paul Ridd, said the standard of films at this year’s EIFF was “exceedingly high.”
“We are so proud of being able to launch this terrific work into the world, and we wish all our filmmakers the very best as they continue their journeys with their films and with their careers,” Ridd said. “It has been a pleasure to spend some time with these talented people this past week. GRIEF ROOM is a contained gem of wit, warmth and sadness, and SKINTOWN is a beautiful, funny and very moving film. We are delighted to see that audiences have responded so enthusiastically to both films. Cinema is alive and well in the hands of these immense talents.”