Part three of three-part Irish film series: Ode to ultimate Irish director, storyteller Jim Sheridan

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In part three of a three-part Irish film series, HollywoodChicago.com Silver Screen Indie Queen Rachel Faith concludes with an ode to ultimate director and storyteller Jim Sheridan. He has delivered to us films including “My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown,” “The Field,” “In the Name of the Father,” “The Boxer,” “In America” and “Get Rich or Die Tryin’”. She writes:

RELATED READING Top Five Irish Actors: The Old School, New School and Hollywood Dropouts (March 19, 2008) Top Five Irish Films: ‘Into the West,’ ‘Once,’ ‘The Commitments,’ ‘Bloody Sunday’ ‘The Wind That Shakes the Barley’ (March 27, 2008)

What better way to wrap up a series of film columns on the Irish (earlier reading: part one; part two) than with an ode to the ultimate Irish storyteller? Dublin-born Jim Sheridan has brought some of the most influential Irish films to the big screen.

His writer-director ways paid off in spades when he was nominated for an Oscar at the age of 40 on his first film attempt, “My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown,” in 1989. It tells the story of Irish painter Christy Brown who was born with cerebral palsy.

With the help and love from his strong-willed mother (Brenda Fricker), Brown trained himself to become an accomplished artist, writer and poet with only the use of – you guessed it – his left foot.

Though Sheridan didn’t take home the statue, he did help put himself – along with little-known actor at the time Daniel Day-Lewis – on the map. Both Day-Lewis and Fricker won Oscars for their performances.