TWO SCREENINGS of the award-winning film The Quiet Girl are to take place in London next week, ahead of the movie's official release in May.
Also known as An Cailín Ciúin, the Irish language film has been met with universal praise, having won the grand prix of the Generation Kplus International Jury for best film at the Berlin International Film Festival in February.
The story follows a nine-year-old girl (played by Catherine Clinch) who is sent away from her dysfunctional family to live with foster parents (Carrie Crowley and Andrew Bennett) in 1981 rural Ireland. While there, she blossoms, but in a house where there are meant to be no secrets, she discovers one painful truth.
It was the first ever Irish language feature film at the Berlinale, with the film set for release in Ireland and the UK on 12 and 13 May respectively.
Ahead of the film's release in the UK, two preview screenings are to take place in London next week.
The first is to take place in the Curzon cinema in Bloomsbury on Tuesday, which will also Irish actor Fiona Shaw host a Q&A with writer/director Colm Bairéad.
Shaw has been a champion of the film, having previously called it "a triumph".
Tickets for that screening, which takes place at 6.30pm, are available to purchase here.
A second screening will take place at the Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith on Sunday, 8 May at 7pm. Tickets for that screening can be purchase here.
When the film is released on 12 May, it will be shown in Curzon cinemas, as well as the following cinemas nationwide (so far):
- Cine Lumiere, London
- Arthouse Crouch End Regional, London
- HOME, Manchester
- Broadway, Nottingham
- Belmont, Aberdeen
- Showroom, Sheffield
- Watershed, Bristol
- Glasgow Film Theatre (GIFT)
- DCA, Dundee
- Filmhouse, Edinburgh
- Tyneside, Newcastle
The Quiet Girl is an adaptation of the acclaimed story, Foster, written by Claire Keegan. First published in the New Yorker and declared “Best of the Year” by the magazine, the story was expanded and published as a standalone book by Faber & Faber in 2010. Writer/director Colm Bairéad first read Foster in the summer of 2018 and was immediately captured by the idea of adapting it as a film.
Speaking about the story, Bairéad says that "thematically, it touched upon so many areas of concern for me, things that has been present in my short drama work up to that point - the complex bonds of family, the question of emotional and psychological growth and crucially, the phenomenon of grief and its capacity to shape us."
The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin) was financed through the Irish feature film initiative, Cine4, which promotes the production of indigenous cinema in the Irish language. Cine4 is a joint initiative between Screen Ireland, TG4 and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland.
