Filmmaker Jim Jarmusch has revealed he is a fan of Kneecap in a new interview with NME.
The celebrated independent director, known for films such as Broken Flowers, Ghost Dog: Way Of The Samurai, and Only Lovers Left Alive, spoke to James Mottram ahead of the April 10 release of his new film Father Mother Sister Brother, starring Cate Blanchett. You can read the full interview here.
During the discussion, the film’s Irish setting, and the director’s love of hip-hop, led to Kneecap being brought up. “Of course. Are you kidding me?” he said when asked if he was a fan of the trio.
“I support them. I like their music. I like their spirit. I like their attitude. I like that they’re Irish and they’re badass, and they fucking say it. Long live Kneecap!”
He solidified his hip-hop connections by also mentioning some collaborators from his past. “I’m close with the Wu-Tang Clan” he explained, referencing that RZA composed the score for Ghost Dog in 1999. “So don’t fuck with me!”
Elsewhere in the interview, the director discussed finding out that David Lynch had died, just seconds before being interviewed by horror icon David Cronenberg. “We both found out 30 seconds before that we had lost David Lynch – and we were both really hit [by it],” he said. “The thing that we both said was ‘David couldn’t get money for a feature film. He could not get a budget for a fucking feature.’ David Lynch! Cronenberg and I went, ‘Man, we’re fucked.’”
Recently, Kneecap performed in Havana after they arrived in Cuba on the Nuestra América Convoy with Jeremy Corbyn. They also spoke out about the “real issue” of anti-Semitism and reaffirmed that they are “against discrimination in any form”.