Cardboard Gangsters' writer/director Mark O'Connor and co-writer/leading star John Connors have said they can't wait to see how the Darndale-set film resonates with Irish audiences.

Read Harry Guerin's four-star review of Cardboard Gangsters here.

Speaking at the gritty drama's Irish premiere at Dublin's Odeon Point Village on Wednesday night, former Love/Hate star Connors said he was delighted to be finally showing the long-gestating film in Ireland.

"It's like a kid going off to school, because five years ago I started writing it, and now it's finally here so I'm kind of glad that it just has wings now and I can let it fly." he told RTÉ Entertainment.

John Connors and Fionn Walton in Cardboard Gangsters

The film has already had a warm international reception, having won awards at film festivals in Manchester, and perhaps more surprisingly, in Los Angeles.

However, Darndale native Connors is most excited about seeing how it's received among his peers at home.

"I just want to see the reaction of Irish audiences, we've done amazing internationally - we won Newport, we won Manchester - but it was meant for an Irish audience and there's a message there for the Irish youth and people from areas like this, so I'm excited by that." he said.

Connors' close collaborator, co-writer and director Mark O'Connor, added: "Honestly the Irish premiere is more exciting than anything because I want Irish people to see it and I want to see how they react. Because this is a homegrown film, it's Irish cinema, all the music is Irish, this is Irish film making, so hopefully people will enjoy it."

The Cardboard Gangsters gang at the Irish premiere on Wednesday night

O'Connor, whose previous work includes Between the Canals and the John Connors-starring 2012 drama King of the Travellers, is taken aback by the success the film has already garnered internationally.

"That was a complete shock," he said of the awards success. "Even to get into those festivals and then to win those awards was unbelievable because this was a very local film and it's got very strong accents so we thought people wouldn't understand it, but for some reason there was something in it that just translated internationally and they just got it."

Connors added: "I wasn't taken aback by Manchester because they're used to that gritty cinema, I knew they'd like it, but Newport in LA, I didn't think they'd like it.

"So I was taken aback by that, and how an American audience could actually understand what we were saying." he added with a laugh.

John Connors excited to see Irish people's reaction to Cardboard Gangsters

It was a long slog to get the project off the ground. "The road to get here was very difficult, to get it funded and then to get it made," O'Connor said. "We only had 15 days to shoot the whole film, and it was a 95-page script and it was multiple characters and multiple locations."

He hopes the hard work will pay off.

"Hopefully tonight goes well and Irish people go into the cinemas and watch this because that's who we made it for really, we made it for people from here", he said.

Cardboard Gangsters hits Irish cinemas on Friday, June 16.



