Film series: Cartoon Saloon

Cartoon Saloon was founded in Kilkenny in 1999 by a trio of Irish filmmakers, including Paul Young, Tomm Moore and Nora Twomey. The animation studio is celebrated for its vibrant, distinctive, hand-drawn animation, for its memorable, melodic soundtracks, and for engaging in fresh ways with Irish folkloric traditions.

The studio burst onto the scene following the release of their first feature-length film The Story of Kells (2010), which was nominated for an Academy Award. Since then, Cartoon Saloon has become a prominent player in the international animation industry, producing everything from award-winning shorts to feature films and TV series and earning comparisons to the Japan-based animation powerhouse Studio Ghibli.

The studio now employs more than 200 artists and technicians in its Kilkenny studio. Its pre-school series Puffin Rock and comedies Skunk Fu and Dorg Van Dango are currently broadcast around the world and its most recent feature, My Father’s Dragon, inspired by the 1948 Ruth Styles Gannet best-selling book, was released on Netflix in November 2023. 

In honor of the 25th anniversary of the studio’s founding, our spring series will feature four films from Cartoon Saloon, including The Story of Kells, Song of the Sea, and Wolfwalkers, which together form Tomm Moore’s Irish Trilogy, along with Nora Twomey’s Oscar- and Golden Globe-nominated The Breadwinner (2014).

Featuring:

Wolfwalkers
Directed by Tomm Moore & Ross Stewart, 2020
Sunday, March 3 at 2:30pm

Song of the Sea    
Directed by Tomm Moore, 2014
Sunday, March 10 at 2:30pm

The Secret of Kells    
Directed by Tomm Moore & Nora Twomey, 2010
Sunday, March 17 at 2:30pm

The Breadwinner    
Directed by Nora Twomey, 2014
Sunday, March 24 at 2:30pm