FORMER GRADUATES of Ballyfermot College of Further Education who have been nominated for Oscars are to reunite tomorrow at the college.
Though the Oscars are not on until Sunday week, it was a weekend of triumph for several of its former animation students.
Richard Baneham won a Bafta (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) at the weekend for best special visual effects for his work on Avatar, now the highest grossing movie of all time.
Baneham, originally from Tallaght, but who now lives in Los Angeles, thanked his “beautiful, beautiful wife and kids” and his parents for his success.
He and the team responsible are hot favourites to win the same category at the Oscars on March 7th.
Baneham has worked on some of the biggest films this decade, including The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and Lord of the Rings trilogy.
He will give a lecture to students tomorrow evening, and will be joined for a questions and answer session by his former class of 1994 graduate Tomm Moore and by Darragh O’Connell who left Ballyfermot in 1999.
Moore is the director of The Secret of Kells, which is nominated for an Oscar in the best animation category. The film won an Ifta for best Irish animated film, and Moore won the Rising Star Award.
O'Connell produced Granny O'Grimm along with another Ballyfermot graduate Nicky Phelan. They have both been nominated in the short film category at the Oscars for Granny O'Grimm. Phelan is currently travelling in India.
BCFE principal Maureen Conway said it was a chance for students to show their appreciation for the success of their graduates before the Oscars which take place on Sunday, March 7th.
“We are all appearing in our own animation cartoon walking a foot above the ground,” she said.
The remarkable weekend for graduates was completed by the success of singer-songwriter Wallis Bird, who studied music and songwriting at Ballyfermot. She unexpectedly won a Meteor for Best Irish Female on Friday.
