A Belfast hip-hop trio play themselves in this rowdy biopic that tracks their fictionalised origins and their real-life crusade to protect the Gaeilge language.

Adopting the stage names Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí, low-level drug dealers Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh and Naoise Ó Cairealláin team up with schoolteacher J.J. Ó Dochartaigh to form Kneecap, a rap group who find themselves unlikely figureheads for the civil rights movement to save the Irish language. Cops, paramilitary groups and the still-present ripples of The Troubles – none will slow down their frenetic energy for drugs, sex, debauchery and their right to speak their native tongue.

Watching the trio perform shortly after moving to Belfast, former journalist turned writer/director Rich Peppiatt convinced the group, over several pints of Guinness, to star as their own selves in a film – one whose potent political chops eventually also drew in Michael Fassbender (who plays Móglaí Bap’s father). Winner of an Audience Award at Sundance and evoking The Commitments and Trainspotting, Kneecap is at once an ode to the raucous motley crew, a homage to the language they proudly defend and a reminder of the precarious existence of many indigenous languages today.

“An exhilarating, exaggerated tale of ketamine binges, PSNI run-ins and raucous sell-out gigs, deftly managing a tonal tightrope that keeps the story grounded in reality, despite its outlandish elements.” – Sight and Sound