Irish-language drama The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin) has been selected as Ireland’s entry for best international feature film at next year’s Academy Awards.
Writer-director Colm Bairéad’s debut feature has enjoyed a lengthy run in Irish and UK cinemas and grossed €870,000 at the box office. It premiered at the Berlinale and since then has secured further releases in international territories including New Zealand and Australia. Bankside handles international sales.
Told almost entirely in the Irish language, the film recounts the story of a neglected young girl named Cáit (Catherine Clinch) who spends a memorable and formative summer with relations.
Screen Star Of Tomorrow 2022 Cleona Ní Chrualaoi produced for Inscéal, the production company she established with Bairéad.
The Quiet Girl was financed through Cine4, the production and development funding initiative established in 2017 through Irish-language TV broadcaster TG4, Screen Ireland and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland. Cine4 provides support for two production and five development projects annually and has sparked significant growth in Irish-language cinema. The film also benefited from Ireland’s Section 481 tax initiative.
Writer-director Bairéad and Ní Chrualaoi of Inscéal said: “We are honoured beyond words that An Cailín Ciúin/The Quiet Girl has been selected to represent Ireland. Our heartfelt thanks to IFTA and its selection committee. We have always believed in the idea that an Irish-language film could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the best of world cinema and we feel so proud to be representing our country and our language in this way.
“It has been an extraordinary privilege adapting Claire Keegan’s ‘Foster’ [novella] to the big screen and we can’t wait to introduce our film to more and more members of the Academy as The Quiet Girl continues its roll-out on the international stage. None of this would have been possible without the vision of TG4, Screen Ireland, and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, who co-funded the Cine4 feature film initiative, which has created a new wave of Irish-language cinema that is being recognised around the world.”
The Quiet Girl is the latest film not in the English language to be put forward as Ireland’s entry for best international feature film, following Arracht (Irish), Gaza (Arabic), Viva (Spanish), Song Of Granite (Irish), As If I Am Not There (Serbo-Croatian) and Kings (Irish).
This year’s Irish Film and Television Academy’s Irish selection committee included actress Roma Downey, actor John C. Reilly, producer and Paramount TV EVP of international strategy David Flynn, filmmaker Jim Sheridan, filmmaker Aisling Walsh and actress Fionnula Flanagan. The committee was chaired by Academy CEO Áine Moriarty.
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