Focus Features picks up Kenneth Branagh’s ‘Belfast’ with Judi Dench, Jamie Dornan and Caitriona Balfe
Focus Features has acquired the worldwide rights to Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast. Written and directed by Academy Award nominee Branagh, Belfast is the humorous, tender and intensely personal story of one boy’s childhood during the tumult of the late 1960s.
The cast stars Golden Globe nominee Caitriona Balfe, Academy Award winner Judi Dench, Jamie Dornan, Ciaran Hinds, and introduces Jude Hill. Dornan and Balfe play a glamorous working class couple caught up in the mayhem, with Dench and Hinds as the wry and spry grandparents. The film is produced by Branagh, Laura Berwick, Becca Kovacik and Tamar Thomas.
“Belfast is my most personal film. It’s about coming home – a dramatic journey of excitement, emotion and humour,” said Branagh. “To be embraced by filmmakers and distributors of such proven imagination and talent as Focus is fantastic. We are honoured to partner with Peter Kujawski and his amazing team. With the incredible support of Northern Ireland Screen also in the mix, we are very excited for the future of Belfast in cinemas around the world in 2021”
Said Focus Features chairman Peter Kujawski, “We are excited and grateful to collaborate with such an esteemed filmmaker and storyteller as Branagh. Highly personal and passionate, Belfast is a heartwarming piece that is bursting with life, and we look forward to sharing it with audiences worldwide
Behind the camera sees many regular Branagh collaborators including production designer Jim Clay, director of photography Haris Zambarloukos, hair and make-up artist Wakana Yoshihara, editor Una Ni Dhonghaile, costume designer Charlotte Walker and casting directors Lucy Bevan and Emily Brockman. Focus Features will distribute the film in the U.S. and Universal Pictures International will distribute internationally.
Branagh is represented by WME, Berwick & Kovacik and Gochman Law Group.
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
- 2025 Oscar Predictions: SUPPORTING ACTOR (November) - November 21, 2024
- 2025 Oscars: Eligibility Lists for Animated Feature, Documentary Feature and International Feature Film for the 97th Academy Awards - November 21, 2024
- Nava Mau, Sean Wang Among 2024 BAFTA Breakthroughs Championing New ‘Must-Watch’ Creatives - November 21, 2024
2025 Oscar Predictions: SUPPORTING ACTOR (November) 
Director Watch Podcast Ep. 72 – ‘Three Colours: Blue’ (Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1993) 
2025 Oscars: Eligibility Lists for Animated Feature, Documentary Feature and International Feature Film for the 97th Academy Awards 
Nava Mau, Sean Wang Among 2024 BAFTA Breakthroughs Championing New ‘Must-Watch’ Creatives