Kneecap have shared the official film poster for their forthcoming biopic – see it first on NME below.
The Irish rap trio unveiled the official trailer for their self-titled biopic, starring Michael Fassbender, last month. The film was also previewed at Glastonbury Festival’s cinema tent, Pilton Palais.
Written and directed by Rich Peppiatt, the feature-length comedy-drama won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival in January. It is due to arrive in Irish cinemas on August 8, before hitting the big screen in the UK on August 23.
Now, the first poster for the film has been shared which features the band in a wobbly image.
“Based on the origin story of the riotous and ground-breaking Irish-language rap trio Kneecap, the film stars the band’s Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí in their acting debuts,” an official synopsis reads.
“Set in West Belfast in 2019, it chronicles how fate brings the trio together and how they then go on to ‘change the sound of Irish music forever’.”
Fassbender (who plays Bap’s father, an exiled IRA member) stars in Kneecap alongside the likes of Simone Kirby, Jessica Reynolds, Fionnuala Flaherty and Josie Walker. Visit here for tickets and more information.
The film has already received praise from Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh, who described it on social media as “absolutely fucking phenomenal”.
“We love the movie, but we weren’t sure if it would ever go beyond Belfast,” Bap recently told NME. “It’s very colloquial. It’s kind of like Trainspotting in that way. Then we went to Sundance and got the audience award. It’s similar to our music; people just get the energy and the craic out of it. I don’t know think Americans know what a tout is, but it didn’t stop them enjoying it.”
“Obviously we loosely took some ideas from Trainspotting and stuff, then we had Irvine Welsh who wrote it coming out and saying it was the best film he’d seen in fucking years or something,” added bandmate DJ Próvaí. “That’s massive praise for us. Obviously we’re a music band we’re doing fucking acting jobs that we’d never done before and people were dubious about whether or not we were going to make it as fucking actors; but go see it.”
Similarly to Kneecap, Trainspotting used its own specific slang but still became a massive success across cultural lines. The 1993 novel the film is based on uses Scots and Scottish English to tell the story of various heroin users and addicts in Leith, Edinburgh.
During a recent interview with the trio for The Cover, NME wrote: “The ballsy biopic is a runaway romp of sex, drugs, music and politics. A clash of 8 Mile and Trainspotting with a dash of Steve McQueen’s Hunger…”
NME‘s Andrew Trendell said that “Kneecap’s performance couldn’t be more convincing – but then, they’ve already lived it”, adding: “Holy shit. What a film.”
Meanwhile, Noel Gallagher recently opened up about seeing Kneecap at Glastonbury 2024 saying he “couldn’t believe how enjoyable it was”.