DJ Próvai, Móglaí Bap, Rich Preppiatt, San Francisco, 7/26/24
Click here to listen to the interview.
Rich Peppiatt convinced the Irish rap group Kneecap to let him tell their story during a long night of drinking. It’s one of the many things we talked about with two members of that group, Móglaí Bap, and JJ DJ Próvai, on July 26, 2024. There was a lot of laughter and joking (and swearing) around during our conversation, but the issues around the film – about intergenerational trauma, recognizing Irish as a language as part of national identity and culture, and the oppression faced by residents of Northern Ireland by the British – are deadly serious. And when the conversation turned to that, so were the gentlemen to whom I was speaking.
The film uses very black comedy, and a breathtaking visual style, to make its points about those issues while telling how the group came to be. The result is a film that is bracingly intelligent bolstered by engaging and charismatic performances by the group in their first acting roles.
We covered the difference between factual truth and emotional truth in telling the true-ish story, making a film in Belfast that doesn’t look like all the others, and how occupiers radicalize people.
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