Director's Works
Kneecap, Sayōnara Finn Keenan
Finn Keenan is an Irish filmmaker from Cavan. After spending most of his teens obsessively trying to emulate tricks from music videos that he watched growing up and making short films with his friends, Finn went on to study Film at the National Film School Ireland.
After graduating, he found his feet shooting, directing and editing videos for Irish bands such as The Strypes, Raglans and Otherkin; before moving to London and has since worked with The Wombats, The Kooks, Louis Berry, George Ezra and Willie J Healy.
After joining Riff Raff's Nursery of Evil in 2017, Finn worked on the Nike ‘LDNR’ and Nike ‘Never Ask’ campaigns with Wieden+Kennedy, directing the social films for both as well as the socials for Halifax ʻThat New Home Feelingʼ with Adam & Eve.
In 2020 Finn was awarded Gold at the Creative Circle awards for Best Up and Coming Director and has been invited to sit on the jury of the next year’s awards. He was also recently crowned winner of the 1.4 Awards 2021 for Commercial Directors “On the Cusp of Greatness”.
He graduated to the main director roster when his gravity defying music video for MK's ʻBack and Forthʼ won three Gold awards at the 2019 Kinsale Sharks. At the end of the same year he directed ‘Qiang Diao’ for Nike China through W+K Shanghai, which was deemed Shots Ad of the Week for its “absurdist, spectacular and unique” nature and went on to be included in the APA’s Top 20 of 2020. Since then he has made ‘Feel Next Level’ for FIFA21 through Adam&EveDDB, provided more on-screen comedy with ‘We Got It’ for Just Eat through McCann and taken Optimus Prime on holiday for Direct Line, through Saatchi & Saatchi.
Finn Keenan is back with his second offering for Kneecap starring Jamie Lee O’Donnell, for their new single ’Sayōnara’ - a collaboration with Orbital’s Paul Hartnoll.
Finn said ‘The intensity and ominous tone of Sayõnara reminded me of both the best nights out and the brutal days that followed. That’s what sparked the idea. But I wanted to turn a typical dance video on its head and focus on the aftermath and how the chemicals in your body change as the week progresses. I wanted to capture the visceral intensity of paranoia and intrusive thoughts. Somehow, that “never again” anxiety of Monday slowly shifts by Friday into a “Weekend is here. Monday will never happen again! ” optimism.
Threaded through this personal journey is a reference to Belfast’s rave history. To represent the symbolic narrative of how illegal raves in the 90s weren’t just parties but powerful acts of defiance, places where divisions blurred and people came together in resistance. The spirit that runs through the film’s imagery, and Jamie-Lee taking the wheel of Kneecap’s pimped-out Land Rover like a rave pied piper, guiding the city into abandon and release.
