Irish Abroad: Lenny Abrahamson’s Room wins Best Narrative at Aspen FilmFest

Fresh from its success in Toronto, Lenny Abrahamson’s critically acclaimed new drama Room has picked up another festival audience award, this time for Best Narrative Feature at the Aspen Filmfest in Colorado.

The festival ran September 26th to 30th in the mountain resort and showcased 23 narrative and documentary films from around the world, giving one Audience Award for each category. Winner of Best Documentary was Jason Zeldes’ Romeo is Bleeding, a documentary about a young poet and activist in Richmond, California.

Author Emma O’Donoghue has adapted the story from her own best-selling novel. That story is told from the perspective of a five-year-old boy, Jack, who is being held captive in a small room along with his mother. To him the room is his world, but his mother knows different having been held there for 7 years.

The film stars Brie Larson (Short Term 12, The Spectacular Now), Jacob Tremblay (The Smurfs 2, Somnia), Joan Allen (The Bourne Supremacy, Nixon), and William H. Macy (Shameless, Magnolia), alongside Sean Bridgers (Rectify), Tom McCamus (The Samaritan), and Megan Park (What If).

Room is an Element Pictures and No Trace Camping production, in association with Telefilm Canada, Film4, and the Irish Film Board. It is released in Ireland on January 29th.