Calm With Horses
Director: Nick Rowland
Premiere at Toronto International Film Festival 2019
In cinemas: 13th March 2020
Synopsis: In rural Ireland, former boxer Arm has become the feared enforcer of the drug-dealing Devers family, while desperately trying to be a good father to his five-year-old autistic son. Torn between these two families, Arm's loyalty is tested when asked to kill for the first time.
What’s so special about Irish society’s depiction?
Calm With Horses is the stunning debut film of Irish director Nick Rowland, who adapted the eponymous short story from writer Colin Barrett's "Young Skins" for which he received the prestigious "Guardian's First Book Award". Critics of the film often mention Ken Loach as a British equivalent to Rowland’s rather dark and realistic depiction of Irish rural towns, showing everyday life struggles for the working class. The constant underlying denunciation of the Government’s inaction to help improve living conditions in these abandoned areas is remarkably brought up on the big screen, emphasized by outstandingly sincere, moving performances from the cast.
The Castle
Director: Lina Lužytė
In cinemas: TBA
Synopsis: After having moved from Lithuania to Dublin with her mother and grandmother who needs constant care, Monika has a dream to play a one in a lifetime concert in a regional castle. Her mother is reluctant to support her daughter’s dreams, so she ends up selling their keyboard and forbids Monika from attending the concert. But Monika stops at nothing to pursue her dream.
What’s so special about Irish society’s depiction?
This movie shares a measured, bittersweet facet about family, exile and immigrants who face financial issues once settled in a new city. Monika’s high hopes are constantly halted by harsh reality; her mother, an honest while cold woman, seems to reflect the wider Lithuanian community in Dublin, trying to make the most of the circumstances they’re given and settling for less than they would have expected. The Castle has a real feel for the locations (grey docklands, graffitied walls, crowded housing estates) and the lives of even the secondary characters who live in these same buildings.
Wildfire
Director: Cathy Brady
In cinemas: TBA
Synopsis: Two sisters, who grew up on the fractious Irish border, finally reunite when one of them, who has been missing, finally returns home. Together they unearth their mother's past but uncovered secrets and resentments which have been buried deep, threaten to overwhelm them.
What’s so special about Irish society’s depiction?
There are troubles of the familial kind at the center of “Wildfire,” set in a border town of Northern Ireland. Then there are “The Troubles,” the decades-long conflict between the region’s unionists and nationalists, the aftermath of which gives Brady’s straightforward story its backdrop. Throughout the film, the two sisters attempt reconciling with their traumatic past that has been entangled with the province’s thorny history in more ways than one. The ambition to cross Ireland’s socio political context with familial drama in a single movie is trailblazing in the approach of modern Irish thrillers.
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