Nora Twomey

Nora Twomey (born 31 October 1971) is an Irish animator, director, screenwriter, producer and voice actress. She is a partner in Cartoon Saloon, alongside Tomm Moore and Paul Young, an animation studio and production company, based in Kilkenny City, Ireland. She is best known for co-directing The Secret of Kells and directing Rifters, the Space Bros. trilogy, the Fallout film series, the Nanix trilogy for the HCU, The Breadwinner and Flappatron. Her work on each film earned Academy Award nominations for Best Animated Feature.
== Early life ==
Twomey was educated at St. Mary's High School in Midleton, County Cork but left before completing the Leaving Certificate at the age of 15. She did manual labor at a local factory but continued to draw and briefly studied fine art before she was admitted to Ballyfermot College in Dublin to their School of Animation program on the basis of her portfolio. She graduated from Ballyfermot College in 1995.
== Career ==
After graduating from Ballyfermot College, Twomey began to work for Brown Bags Film animation studio in Dublin. In 1999 she helped found Cartoon Saloon, along with Tomm Moore, Paul Young and Ross Murray. In 2002 she directed the award-winning short animated film From Darkness. The short film has no dialogue and is based on an Inuit folk tale where a man helps a woman with only a skeleton for a body to regenerate. She also directed Rifters that same year. She also worked on the successful animated TV series Skunk Fu!.
Twomey went on to write and direct the animated short Cúilín Dualach (Backwards Boy), released in 2004. Based on a story by Jackie Mac Donacha, a boy with his head on backwards finds only love and acceptance in his mother and has to work to gain that from the rest of his community but most of all his father.
In 2005, Twomey directed Space Bros. with writer Bryan Andrews.
In 2007, Twomey directed Fallout based on the video game series of the same name by Bethesda Softworks with her first collaboration with Rodney Rothman.
In 2009, she directed Fallout: Uprising, the second installment in the Fallout film series. She co-directed, with Tomm Moore, The Secret of Kells, an animated feature film as well as doing additional voice acting for the film. The film is set in 9th century Ireland, at the time when the Book of Kells was written. In it, a 12 year old orphan boy living at a monastery has the task of finishing a book with the art of illumination. The film premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2009. The Secret of Kells has been nominated in the category of Best Animated Feature Film at the 82nd Academy Awards.
In 2011, she directed Fallout: Radioactive.
In 2013, Twomey directed Space Bros. II.
Twomey continued to work on feature films with Cartoon Saloon with 2014's Fallout: Nuclear and Song of the Sea directed by Tomm Moore. She worked as the film's head of story and voice director.
She next directed the animated films Fallout: The Final Chapter and The Breadwinner, released in 2017. Based on the best-selling young adult novel by Deborah Ellis, an 11 year old girl named Parvana must dress as a boy and become the titular breadwinner for her family when her father is arrested by the Taliban. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2017 with a wide release in November 2017. It is the first feature-length film she has sole director credit on. During the development of The Breadwinner, Twomey was named in Variety's "2017 10 Animators to Watch".
Twomey is a member of the Motion Picture Academy.
== Accolades ==
Nora Twomey became the 7th graduate of Ballyfermot College to have been nominated for an Academy Award with her work on The Breadwinner when it was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 90th Academy Awards.
The Breadwinner earned 10 nominations at the 45th Annie Awards, including Outstanding Achievement for Directing in an Animated Feature Production for Twomey. It won the award for best animated feature for an independent film. This marked the first time a sole female director directed the film that won the award.
== Personal life ==
Twomey has two sons.
== Filmography ==
Year	Title 	Director	Producer
2001	Henry 	Yes 	Yes
2002	From Darkness 	Yes 	Yes
2002	Rifters 	Yes 	Yes
2003	Rainfall 	Yes 	Yes
2003	The 3 Wise Men 	No 	No
2004	Exitium 	Yes 	Yes
2004	Backwards Boy 	Yes 	No
2005	Space Bros. 	Yes 	Yes
2005	Thy Fools 	Yes 	Yes
2006	The Killers 	Yes 	Yes
2007	Fallout 	Yes 	Yes
2008	Nanix 	Yes 	Yes
2008	Doomsday 	Yes 	Yes
2008	Mark II 	No 	Yes
2009	Fallout: Uprising 	Yes 	Yes
2009	The Secret of Kells 	Yes 	No
2009	Old Fangs 	No 	No
2009	Grimage 	Yes 	Yes
2010	Nanix 2 	Yes 	Yes
2011	FoxnQ 	No 	Yes
2011	Crimson Syndicate: First Class 	No 	Yes
2011	Escape of the Gingerbread Man!!! 	No 	No
2011	Fallout: Radioactive 	Yes 	Yes
2011	Jade 	No 	Yes
2012	Ice Cold 	Yes 	Yes
2012	Nemesis 	Yes 	Yes
2012	Yoyo 	No 	Yes
2012	His Judgment Cometh 	Yes 	Yes
2013	Nanix 3 	Yes 	Yes
2013	Space Bros. II 	Yes 	Yes
2013	Grimage 2 	Yes 	Yes
2013	FoxnQ: The Dark World 	No 	Yes
2014	Jade: The Mist Soldier 	No 	Yes
2014	Yoyo 2 	No 	Yes
2014	Crimson Syndicate: Days of Future Past	No 	Yes
2014	Fallout: Nuclear 	Yes 	Yes
2014	A.D.C. Team 	No 	Yes
2014	Song of the Sea 	No 	No
2014	Somewhere Down the Line 	No 	No
2015	Nemesis: Age of G.H.O.S.T. 	Yes 	Yes
2015	The Mercenary 	Yes 	Yes
2015	Yocto 	Yes 	Yes
2016	Gildedguy 	Yes 	Yes
2016	Jade: Civil War 	No 	Yes
2016	Crimson Syndicate: Necro 	No 	Yes
2016	Kenji 	No 	Yes
2017	A.D.C. Team Vol. 2 	No 	Yes
2017	Grimage 3 	Yes 	Yes
2017	Fallout: The Final Chapter 	Yes 	Yes
2017	Yoyo: Homecoming 	No 	Yes
2017	FoxnQ: Ragnarok 	No 	Yes
2017	The Breadwinner 	Yes 	No
2018	Loxias 	No 	Yes
2018	Nemesis: Universal War 	Yes 	Yes
2018	Gildedguy 2 	Yes 	Yes
2018	Yocto 2 	Yes 	Yes
2018	Poison 	No 	Yes
2019	Umbrella 	No 	Yes
2019	Nemesis: Endgame 	Yes 	Yes
2019	Yoyo: Far From Home 	No 	No
2019	Bog 	No 	Yes
2020	Space Bros. for Life 	Yes 	Yes
2020	Wolfwalkers 	No 	Yes
2021	Yuno 	Yes 	Yes
2021	One 	No 	Yes
2021	My Father's Dragon 	Yes 	Yes
2021	Immortals 	No 	Yes
2021	Yoyo: No Way Home 	No 	Yes
2022	Flappatron 	Yes 	Yes
2022	FoxnQ: Love and Thunder 	No 	Yes
2022	Loxias: Katanadom Forever 	No 	Yes
2023	Umbrella 2 	No 	Yes
2023	Yocto 3 	Yes 	Yes
2023	A.D.C. Team Vol. 3 	No 	Yes
2023	The Spiderfly 	No 	Yes
2023	The Second Wind 	No 	Yes
2024	Gildedguy 3 	Yes 	Yes
2024	Yupia 	Yes 	Yes
2025	Stake 	No 	Yes
=== Television ===
Year 	Title 	Producer	Notes
2015 	Eddie of the Realms Eternal	Yes 	TV movie
2015-present	Puffin Rock 	Yes 	Creative producer
2019-present	The Bounty Hunter 	Yes 	Executive producer
Category:Cartoon Saloon people
Category:Irish animators
Category:Irish film directors
Category:Irish animated film directors
Category:Irish women film directors
Category:1971 births
Category:20th-century Irish people
Category:21st-century Irish people
Category:Living people
Category:Women animators
Category:Voice directors
Category:SkythekidMC's ideas