With his fifth film as a writer/ director/ producer, Sheridan presents his most personal and magical story yet, the tale of a family finding its soul, IN AMERICA, which he co-wrote with his daughters, Naomi Sheridan & Kirsten Sheridan. Based on his own experiences coming to New York as a flat-broke immigrant, as well as remembrances of a devastating family tragedy, IN AMERICA confronts the mysterious nature of love, loss and finding new hope. The cast includes Academy Award nominee for SWEET AND LOWDOWN Samantha Morton (MINORITY REPORT), Paddy Considine (24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE), Djimon Hounsou (AMISTAD, GLADIATOR) and sisters Sarah Bolger (A LOVE DIVIDED) and Emma Bolger in her feature film debut.
IN AMERICA is nominated for three Academy Awards including Best Original Screenplay, Best Lead Actress Samantha Morton and Best Supporting Actor Djimon Hounsou. It won a Critics Choice Award for Best Original Screenplay. It is nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay, a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture and has six Independent Spirit Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Director, as well as Samantha Morton for Best Female Lead, Djimon Hounsou for Best Supporting Male, Sarah Bolger for Best Supporting Female and Declan Quinn for Best Cinematography. The film was nominated for two Golden Globes® and is listed on more than 150 critics' top 10 lists including AFI and the National Board of Review, which awarded it Best Original Screenplay. It is the recipient of the Producers Guild of America's Stanley Kramer Award.
Embraced by international audiences, Jim Sheridan has nevertheless remained quintessentially Irish. He first drew worldwide attention in 1989 for his debut feature film, MY LEFT FOOT, which was based on the surprisingly uplifting life of the Irish writer/painter Christy Brown, a man with such severe cerebral palsy he could only move his left foot. The film's critical and box-office success kick-started a renaissance of Irish filmmaking and earned an amazing five Academy Award nominations including Best Picture. Daniel Day Lewis was propelled to global stardom and the film marked the beginning of a fruitful collaboration between Lewis and Sheridan.
MY LEFT FOOT went on to earn both Lewis and Brenda Fricker Academy Awards (for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress) and received multiple Oscar nominations for Sheridan, including those for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. The film also won the Donatello (Italian Oscar equivalent) for Best Foreign Film, among many other international awards and earned Sheridan a Writer's Guild of America nomination.
Despite numerous offers from Hollywood, Sheridan decided to remain in Ireland to direct his next feature, THE FIELD, featuring an Oscar-nominated performance from Richard Harris as a farmer who vigilantly defends his land from real-estate developers. Sheridan also wrote the screenplay for the critically acclaimed modern fairy tale INTO THE WEST, directed by Mike Newell, which introduced the world to his more magical side with a story of the Irish traveling community (gypsies) and their enchanted white horse that seamlessly merged reality with fantasy.
In 1993, Sheridan wrote, produced and directed IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, a powerful drama that recounts the struggle of Gerry Conlon, a man wrongly prosecuted and imprisoned for an IRA bombing, starring Daniel Day Lewis and Emma Thompson. Drawing both controversy and praise for its searing realism, the film won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and went on to receive seven Academy Award nominations, including those for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture. IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER also brought Sheridan a second Donatello for Best Foreign Film and another WGA Award nomination.
His next film, which Sheridan wrote, produced and directed, THE BOXER, reunited the director with actor Daniel Day Lewis in a love story set against the explosive atmosphere of Northern Ireland. THE BOXER received the Best Foreign Film at Spain's Goya Awards and earned Sheridan a Golden Globe nomination as Best Director. Sheridan also wrote and produced SOME MOTHER'S SON, directed by Terry George and produced AGNES BROWNE, which was directed by and starred Anjelica Huston.
Under his Hell's Kitchen banner, Sheridan has executive produced three distinctive Irish films: BORSTAL BOY about Irish writer Brendan Behan and directed by Sheridan's brother Peter Sheridan; John Carney's teen drama ON THE EDGE; and most recently, the award-winning docu-drama BLOODY SUNDAY, directed by Paul Greengrass, which garnered the coveted Audience Award at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and two British Independent Film Awards, among other accolades.
The son of a theater director, Sheridan grew up in Ireland, where his brother Frankie died of a brain tumor, one of the real-life events woven into IN AMERICA. Later, he began his career on stage, co-founding Dublin's Project Art Centre. He had numerous plays produced in Ireland, including the highly regarded "Spike in the First World War," based on Jaroslev Hasek's novel The Good Soldier Schweik. He was awarded the Macauley Fellowship for writers, and was at that time only the second playwright ever to receive the honor.
As an actor, Sheridan has also played substantial roles in two films by the Irish director Mary McGuckian - THE WORDS UPON THE WINDOW PANE, in which he played the leading role of Dean Swift, and THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY, which was shot earlier this year in Spain with Robert de Niro, Harvey Keitel and Kathy Bates. Sheridan played the role of the king of Spain in the film, which is set for release early next year.
In 1981, Sheridan journeyed across the ocean to America, via Canada, to attempt to make it on the New York stage, with his wife and two daughters in tow (a third daughter was born in New York) - events which inspired the story of IN AMERICA. While in New York, Sheridan received his only formal training in film, enrolling in NYU Film School for six weeks. He ended up serving as artistic director of the Irish Arts Center, where his creative leadership helped to win the theatre a 1987 Obie® Award for "sustained excellence." Two decades after he first came to America, Sheridan came full circle, returning to New York to shoot IN AMERICA.
