Nora Twomey

Nora Twomey (born 31 October 1971) is an Irish animator, director, screenwriter, producer and voice actress. She is best known as the co-founder of 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 The Breadwinner. Her work on both films earned Academy Award nominations for Best Animated Feature. Early life Twomey was educated at St. Mary's Secondary 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. In the factory Twomey manned a conveyor belt for up to twelve hours on end during the night shift. Twomey credits this period of her life to much of her success, as she wore headphones to drown out the loud noise of machinery, the silence combined with the monotony of the task she performed allowed her to ponder concepts and generate ideas, many of which would be put to film later in her life. 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 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.