From All-Night Bender to Ireland’s Most Important Film – MASHAHER

“Has anyone worn a tracksuit to the Oscars?”

It’s not a question Naoise O’ Cairealláin — one-third of the fast-rising Irish-language hip-hop group Kneecap, who is better known by his stage name Móglaí Bap — ever thought he’d be asking. But with “Kneecap,” the anarchic semi-fictitious biopic in which he plays his perma-tracksuited self, gaining momentum ahead of its U.S. release on Aug. 2 and poised to become Ireland’s international feature submission for the 2025 Academy Awards, whether he should don his trademark attire to the ceremony isn’t too unreasonable a consideration.

“We could do black tracksuits with white ties,” suggests bandmate JJ O Dochartaigh (aka DJ Próvaí), who is also wondering about the Irish-tricolored balaclava he’s rarely seen without (and has on for much of the film). “But we’d try to bring the RUC jeep to the Oscars with us.”

RUC stands for Royal Ulster Constabulary, Northern Ireland’s controversial former state police force that patrolled Belfast throughout the Troubles until 2001 and was accused of sectarianism and brutality, mostly toward the Catholic and Irish nationalist communities Kneecap grew up in (and rap about). The jeep in question is currently parked outside central Galway’s Galmont Hotel, where the band — named after the IRA practice of shooting drug dealers in the knees — are speaking to Variety over a somewhat clichéd pint of Guinness. 

The van is both part-time tour bus and motorized political statement. Two Palestinian flags are fixed to the front (Kneecap say they’ve long been supporters of the Palestinian cause and are known to take part in protests, call for a “Free Palestine” on stage and post on social media about the war in Gaza). It’s also adorned with several stickers declaring “England Get Out of Ireland” (lovingly applied earlier in the day by Próvaí), plus foreboding steel grills over the windscreen and front lights and an Irish flag hanging from the roof, on which is also fitted a cage containing a (fake) police video camera. For a sleepy Tuesday morning on the west coast of Ireland, it makes for an eye-catching sight. How it might go down anywhere near Hollywood Blvd. is another matter entirely. 

An hour or so prior to the interview, both Bap and Próvaí had been standing on top of the jeep in front of Galway’s otherwise unassuming Town Hall Theatre, holding aloft flares billowing out red smoke for the benefit of a small huddle of photographers (and a couple of die-hard fans who got wind of the event). The two would usually be accompanied by fellow Kneecap-er Mo Chara (Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh), but after several months of nonstop touring around Europe — including a couple of packed, career-defining sets at Glastonbury just a week after launching debut LP “Fine Art” — he’s fallen sick and can’t make it.

They’re not in Galway as musicians, however, but as movie stars. 

“Kneecap” — in which the trio all play themselves in debut acting roles (alongside a slightly more rehearsed movie star, Michael Fassbender) and deliver a chaotic ride through working class Belfast filled with sex, drugs, swearing, politically-charged lyrics, more drugs and fierce Irish nationalism — already broke ground earlier this year when it became the first Irish-language film to screen at Sundance. In the freezing climes of Utah, it quickly became a word-of-mouth sensation, won an audience award and was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics, and has since been packing out cinemas at various international festivals, including Tribeca and Karlovy Vary. But the film now has its most important pitstop so far: its Irish premiere at the Galway Film Fleadh. 

Audiences around the world may have already been drawn to the uniquely in-your-face energy of a film many have likened to an Irish version of “Trainspotting” (Irvine Welsh, who wrote the novel the 1996 classic is based on, even described “Kneecap” on X as “absolutely fucking phenomenal”) — certainly a million miles from the country’s standard rural, “begorra”-filled cinematic stereotypes. But for writer-director Rich Peppiatt, given its subjects’ deep resonance on home soil, the first public screening of “Kneecap” to a local audience was always the “date that had been circled in red on the calendar.”

As the filmmaker explains ahead of the Galway premiere (over water and, later, pints of Guinness), how “Kneecap” came to be is an origin story almost as wild — but not quite — as the band itself. 

A former British tabloid journalist turned documentary maker, Peppiatt had moved to Belfast with his young family in 2019 (to be near his wife’s parents but, primarily, to escape London’s insane property market). Within a couple of weeks of arriving, he found himself at a gig of a hip-hop group he’d never heard of and, while he didn’t understand “what the fuck they were saying on stage,” he was inspired and intrigued by the thousand fans who clearly did. 

“Kneecap were just starting to become this quiet phenomenon that was coming out of West Belfast and the Irish-speaking community,” says producer Trevor Birney, an Emmy-nominated documentary maker who has flitted successfully between politics (“No Stone Unturned,” “Gaza”) and music (“Cyndi Lauper: Let the Canary Sing,” “The Go-Go’s”). 

It was Birney who, after Peppiatt had failed to get a response from Kneecap via email for several months, finally gave him a number (through a girl in his office who had been in a relationship with someone in the band). They went for a drink, and another drink and another and — in what may end up being written in the annals of Irish filmmaking history — Peppiatt and the Kneecap trio ended up on a 12-hour all-nighter that didn’t finish until 7 a.m. the following morning. 

“I know now that they were just testing me to check that I a) wasn’t a cop, and b) could keep pace with them,” says the director. But, once the hangover had subsided, he realized that there was a creative potential there worth exploring. There was something about Kneecap’s spirit, music, politics, proud use of Irish and how they represented a new generation of so-called “Peace Babies” — those born around or after the Good Friday Agreement who are part of a lively, modern Ireland wanting to shake off historical burdens and reclaim its cultural heritage.

For Birney, it was “one of those stories that was hiding in plain sight. Fuck, of course, Kneecap.”

And so began the year-long task of actually sitting down to write a script, with Peppiatt having to endure numerous other prolonged sessions with arguably Ireland’s hardest partying rap group. 

Eventually he weaved together a plot that was part fact, part fiction; an elevated retelling of how Bap, Chara and Próvaí came to become Kneecap, their staunch belief in Irish as a powerful symbol of identity and weapon against colonial oppression and their frequent run-ins with the authorities, paramilitary groups and ketamine. 

Many of the more outlandish elements are true. Bap was christened at an ancient Catholic site as a British army helicopter hovered overhead. The school where Próvaí taught Irish did launch an investigation to find out if he was indeed the balaclava-wearing musician behind tracks such as “Get Your Brits Out.” Other elements are twisted. Fassbender plays Bap’s father and a bearded former IRA man now in hiding (in reality, his dad is Gearóid Ó Cairealláin, a playwright, journalist and Irish-language activist). 

Despite his own enthusiasm, Birney was still concerned that financiers might be a little “squeamish” about a script awash in drug references and lines such as “I’m going to blow you like a Brighton hotel,” which is said in the film by Chara’s Protestant lover in reference to the 1984 IRA bombing that almost killed U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. But others proved to be just as excited (although, in fairness, almost all of them tried — and failed — to get the Brighton line removed). 

One of the first calls Birney made was to longtime collaborator Proinsias Ní Ghráinne, commissioning editor for Irish-language public broadcaster TG4, who tells Variety it was an “absolute no brainer” for the channel to come onboard as TV partner. He also made an early call to Patrick O’Neill, founder of well-established Irish distributor Wildcard, who made “Kneecap” the company’s first co-production credit (and should be given additional praise for helping source the all-important Jeep). For O’Neill, who has helped support numerous Irish films, there was something irresistible about the way Kneecap spoke in a “fresh language about things people would traditionally have been beaten down for saying” and represented a growing subculture that wasn’t ashamed about wanting a united Ireland.

In 2020, the script was submitted for development funding from Mother Tongues, a new initiative for U.K.-based filmmakers with non-English-language projects. “Kneecap” became the first recipient, which saw Shudder Films boss Jack Tarling come aboard as a producer, Curzon as co-producer and U.K. distributor, and Charades as sales agent (the French company were giving away “Kneecap” balaclavas at market screenings in Berlin earlier this year). Then there was funding from local film boards Northern Ireland Screen and Screen Ireland, followed by the British Film Institute. 

“When the BFI showed an interest, I thought, ‘That’s going to annoy the Daily Mail,’” Peppiatt laughs. And it did. Within days of the Sundance premiere, the right-wing paper posted an angry story online attacking the use of public money to fund the biopic of a rap group “accused of glorifying the IRA and stoking sectarian hatred.” But Peppiatt asserts that his Englishness “makes us Teflon,” arguing that any time the film is described as “anti-British” they can simply point to the fact it was written by a Brit. 

Notoriety has always been something, as might now be expected, that Kneecap have embraced. The band initially rose to fame in 2017 when one of the main Irish radio stations banned their track “C.E.A.R.T.A.” for “drug references and cursing,” while they sparked more headlines in 2022 thanks to a mural they painted on a Belfast wall of an armored police Land Rover on fire (a move that provoked frothy-mouthed outrage from unionist politicians). They drove a near identical van — which, alongside the balaclava, has effectively become their logo — to Sundance, having hired it at great expense from a prop house in L.A. And at the launch of their LP in June, they took over a London pub where they invited guests to relieve themselves on pictures of King Charles that they’d placed in the urinals. 

But controversy — at least in terms of Kneecap’s unapologetically outspoken nature — is also something unlikely to fade, no matter how many albums they sell or how far up the ladder they climb. While their facade may be one of tongue-in-cheek mischief making, it’s clear that they hold their morals and political beliefs with a much higher regard that even career ambitions. In March, “Kneecap” screened at SXSW, where the band had been due to appear and perform. But they pulled out at the last minute due to the involvement of weapons companies at the festival and its sponsorship by the U.S. Army, a decision they asserted at the time would have a “significant financial impact” on the band (and one O’Neill notes he was only told about while mid-air on his way to Austin). Months later, SXSW dropped the sponsorship.

Kneecap’s tireless co-manager Peadar Ó Goill (who is also the main driver of the RUC jeep and a film director in his own right) says he was instantly drawn to the trio “because they’d never sell out.” In Sundance, it was rumored that they had been quietly asked to “tone down” some of the political messages, especially with regards to Palestine, until the contract had been signed with Sony Pictures Classics. But every producer has assured they’d never even consider making such a request, and that — were they to do so — it would only be counterproductive. “We have never changed how we feel or how we talk about politics,” asserts Próvaí. It’s worth noting that the band have banned “Kneecap” from being sold or shown in Israel in protest over the attacks on Gaza, something Bap claims is just a “small gesture” of solidarity.

Sensitivity issues involving both Kneecap themselves and the script’s content to the side, there were several considerable risks about producing “Kneecap” that were more specific to actual moviemaking. Chief among them: the fact it was being led by three guys who had never acted before (Próvaí jokes that he had to play himself because “Paul Mescal was busy”). This was something they were starkly aware of, too. If the film did go south, their music careers would likely be brought down with it. “Because when everyone else leaves ‘Kneecap’ the movie they’ll go onto the next thing, whereas we’ll still be Kneecap,” says Bap.

To overcome the not insignificant acting hurdle, Peppiatt recruited the services of a theater lecturer in Belfast and gave him “six months to whip them into shape.” Although the band may have struggled to actually turn up to their classes on time, it worked. “They went from moths to butterflies,” Peppiatt says.

Perhaps sensing the immensity of the task at hand, the three Kneecap-ers even went sober for two months in 2023 ahead of the start of production. However, Bap admits they blew all their hard work by drinking an “unholy amount of alcohol” in the hotel before the first day of production, and ended up filming their first scene the following morning “with our eyes barely open.” It was actually Fassbender who was leading the late night boozing later in the shoot, according to Peppiatt (who, given the actor’s star-power, held little sway when it came to getting his lead cast to call it a night).

Despite these self-induced obstacles — and the fears of the crew who Próvaí claims on the first day “all came on set to see if they needed to worry about their jobs” — something quite special clearly happened. And it happened practically in sync with the rise of the band.

Development of the film began just as Kneecap were beginning to push outside West Belfast, but by the time it was completed they were already touring overseas (including the U.S.). Since the Sundance premiere, their popularity has soared, with the profile of the band and the movie effectively feeding off each other. O’Neill at Wildcard claims much of the symbiosis “wasn’t accidental,” with coordination between distributors and Kneecap’s label Heavenly Records ensuring releases of both music and film have been carefully timed.

But that’s not to suggest “Kneecap” was made as a marketing exercise to boost record sales, with it entirely tuning in with one of Kneecap’s key goals: pushing the Irish language into unchartered territories.

“It’s about representing this new identity and this whole subculture that exists, and being able to put it on the platform for people around the world,” says Bap. “In America, people are often shocked when they find out Irish isn’t just an accent!”

Kneecap have now effectively become the Gen-Z figureheads for a language once said to be in decline. Ní Ghráinne at TG4 says that, thanks to the rappers, “learning Irish has suddenly become cool, teenagers are speaking it and bands that were only singing in English before are now writing Irish songs.” At the photoshoot in Galway, a young fan shaking with nerves at meeting her heroes explained that she’d recently “spoken about Kneecap in her Irish oral exam.”

Later that day, emotions spill over at the “Kneecap” premiere, where many younger audience members at the packed out Town Hall Theatre — several of whom had driven over to the west coast from Belfast for the day — admit to getting teary eyed, especially during the rousing final scenes. Whether or not they lived the same raucous existences as the rappers, the film captures an essence of their world, their stories and their identity that they simply hadn’t seen in a cinema before. There’s good reason “Kneecap” is expected to smash records in Ireland when it opens on Aug. 8 — almost a week after the U.S. — with the widest release ever for an Irish film (additional screens keep being added in Belfast to cope with demand).

And then there’s the Oscars.

As not just the buzziest Irish-language film, but one of the buzziest non-English-language films of the year, “Kneecap” has long been expected to get the nod from the Irish Film and TV Academy to represent the country in the international feature category. Even the band themselves got involved in campaigning for votes, but in typically Kneecap style. The trio were among the presenters at the IFTA Awards in Dublin in April (doing so wearing tracksuits and trainers, of course) and were asked by Variety before the ceremony how the submission process was coming on. “That’s why we’re here doing this shit,” was the poetic response.

Should it be put forward, there are strong hopes “Kneecap” could match the achievements of “The Quiet Girl,” which earned Ireland its first ever nomination in 2022. Many suspect that some traditional, older voters may not chime with the film’s more riotous, anti-establishment tones, while the band’s outspoken views — which no experienced Hollywood publicist has a hope of quietening — could prove a stumbling block. Kneecap are are clearly not ones for shaking the right hands or, as Próvaí puts it, “tickling the right nuts” as part of any carefully stage-managed awards campaign. But the Academy’s younger, more international intake of members could help swing it, as could the prospect of seeing the trio on the red carpet.

Whether Kneecap — and their tracksuits, balaclavas and armored RUC jeep — make it to the Oscars remains to be seen. But whatever the outcome, their film’s impact on Ireland and Irish cinema is already unquestionable.

“What Rich [Peppiatt] has done is grab the Irish film industry by the balls,” says Birney. “I don’t believe there’s another writer-director in the U.K. or Ireland who could have done this, because you could not have done this film if you weren’t prepared to go on an all-nighter with Kneecap.”

“Kneecap” may have been born out of a drink-and-drugs-fueled 12-hour session, but it may well end up being one of the most important 12-hour sessions in filmmaking history. 

“Most all-night benders leave only a serotonin deficiency and regrets in their wake,” Peppiatt says. “My first night with Kneecap certainly fulfilled the former, but there sure ain’t any regrets.”