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Catherine Clinch as Cáit in The Quiet Girl

The Quiet Girl , 12.10am, Channel 4, Tuesday, February 18

Anne-Katrin Titze writes: Colm Bairéad’s superb first feature, The Quiet Girl, shot by Kate McCullough (European Film Award winner), is based on Claire Keegan’s story, Foster. It tells the tale of Cait (magnificent newcomer Catherine Clinch), a young girl in the rural Ireland of about 40 years ago. She is sent off by her parents to distant relatives (Carrie Crowley and Andrew Bennett as the Cinnsealachs), virtual strangers to spend the summer while her mother (Kate Nic Chonaonaigh) gets ready to give birth to her sixth child in their already too crowded, filthy, poverty-stricken household. Cait’s surly father Dan (Michael Patric) one night tells his wife that “they can keep her as long as they like.” Cait overhears the conversation. Equivalent to Hansel and Gretel’s classic...

“Kneecap,” Rich Peppiatt’s acclaimed comedy-biopic about the Belfast rap trio of the same name, is heading back to Irish cinemas this week after landing six BAFTA nominations.

Wildcard Distribution — which also co-produced the film — is re-releasing “Kneecap” across Ireland exactly a year after it became the first Irish-language film to world premiere in Sundance 2024, where it became one of the breakout hits of the festival and was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics.

Telling the wild and semi-fictitious story of how Kneecap came together as a band and their proud use of Irish, “Kneecap” has already broken records on home soil, where last year it had the widest theatrical opening for a non-English language film and, with $1.5 million, earned the biggest box office for an Irish-language film. There’s hope that its ongoing award season success — and growing optimism that the feature will be nominated for an Oscar later...

Irish advertising company Banjoman Films’ newly-launched division Bman Entertainment is partnering with London-based sales agent Bankside Films and Ireland-uk production company Forty Foot Pictures on a €50,000 scheme for genre writers.

Three screenwriters, who must be working on their first or second feature film with projects that lean into the thriller, horror or sci-fi genres, will be awarded a share of the €50,000 pot towards the writing of their screenplay and receive ongoing development support with a view to the projects being produced by Banjoman’s new film and TV division Bman Entertainment and Forty Foot Pictures, and sold internationally by Bankside.

Irish advertising company Banjoman Films’ newly-launched division Bman Entertainment is partnering with London-based sales agent Bankside Films and Ireland-uk production company Forty Foot Pictures on a €50,000 scheme for genre writers.

Three screenwriters, who must be working on their first or second feature film with projects that lean into the thriller, horror or sci-fi genres, will be awarded a share of the €50,000 pot towards the writing of their screenplay and receive ongoing development support with a view to the projects being produced by Banjoman’s new film and TV division Bman Entertainment and Forty Foot Pictures, and sold internationally by Bankside.

Irish advertising company Banjoman Films is partnering with London-based sales agent Bankside Films and Ireland-uk production company Forty Foot Pictures on a €50,000 scheme for genre writers.

Three screenwriters, who must be working on their first or second feature film with projects that lean into the thriller, horror or sci-fi genres, will be awarded a share of the €50,000 pot towards the writing of their screenplay and receive ongoing development support with a view to the projects being produced by Banjoman’s new film and TV division Bman Entertainment and Forty Foot Pictures, and sold internationally by Bankside.

Screenwriters must be from...

Exclusive: Sharon Horgan, co-creator and writer of the series Bad Sisters, Motherland and Catastrophe, has boarded the Oscar-qualified live-action short Calf as executive producer.

Written and Jamie O’Rourke, the domestic abuse-themed Irish short is set way out in the countryside, a place where the worst things are silenced, where a sinister farm accident leaves Cáit with a terrible decision to make.

Produced by Ronan Cassidy of Carbonated Comet for Virgin Media Television in association with Screen Ireland, the film stars Isabelle Connolly (God’s Creatures) and Kate Nic Chonaonaigh (The Quiet Girl). It was funded by Virgin Media and Screen Ireland under the Virgin Discovers film fund. Other exec producers include Sinead Stimpfig and Daniel Lloyd for Virgin and Andrew Byrne of Screen Ireland.

Calf qualified for the Oscars longlist after winning numerous awards, including International Danzantes at the Huesca Film Festival and Best Short at this year’s Irish Film and Television Awards.

Perhaps it’s appropriate that a story about a coal man should be an extremely slow burn, but there isn’t much warmth for the beleaguered protagonist of this wintry drama. Typically, Cillian Murphy has used his newfound Oscar-winner clout to go back to Ireland and work again with his Disco Pigs collaborator Enda Walsh on an adaptation of a sparely worded novel by Claire Keegan. The result is remarkably powerful, even if it’s understated to the point of wordlessness.

Murphy plays Bill Furlong, a father of five daughters with a kindly heart but taciturn demeanour. He has secrets in his past that make him, perhaps, unusually sympathetic to the girls brought into the local convent because they are “in trouble”, as it was euphemistically called, but every personal and social pressure counsels him against speaking out, lest the powerful church turn against his business, his family and himself.

All the Small Things: Mielants Mines the Evils of Complicity

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” The oft cited quote from Edmund Burke is the ultimate essence of Small Things Like These, the latest from Belgian director Tim Mielants. Adapted from the 2021 novella by Claire Keegan (who also wrote The Quiet Girl), it’s a subtle exploration of the infamous Magdalene Laundries, torturous institutions run by the Roman Catholic Church intended to house ‘fallen women.’ While many films have explored the dreadful details of this culturally sanctioned terror, Mielants expounds upon Keegan’s prose to highlight the communal complicity which allowed this institutionalization to prosper.…...

The Dinard film festival (2-6 October), traditionally a celebration of all things British, brought its 35th iteration to the seaside city’s screens with a soft relaunch this year, after retitling itself to include Irish films and co-productions. The result was suitably eclectic, with just six films competing for the Hitchcock d’Or, which was voted on by an eight-strong jury of actors and directors. Including The Quiet Girl director Colm Bairéad and House of the Dragon star Phoebe Campbell, the judging panel was headed up by French actress-director-model-singer Arielle Dombasle, a favorite of Claude Lelouch, Éric Rohmer and Alain Robbe-Grillet but more recently seen this summer singing her song “Olympics” to herald the arrival of the Olympic torch in Paris, ahead of the recent games.

Opening with Alice Lowe’s horror-comedy Timestalker and ending with Matt Brown’s psychological drama Freud’s Last Session, the festival — curated by Dominique Green...

Rich Peppiatt’s Kneecap has crossed £2m at the UK-Ireland box office, as of Thursday, September 26, in a strong result for distributors Wildcard and Curzon.

The film has made almost £1.2m across seven weeks of release in Ireland and Northern Ireland, through Wildcard Distribution.

Curzon Film is distributing the title in England, Scotland and Wales, where it has been on release for five weeks and made £806,851.

The film has particularly flourished at leading UK-Ireland independent venues, with Glasgow Film Theatre, Dublin’s Light House, Watershed Bristol and London’s Curzon Soho making up the top four in order.

A Sundance 2024 premiere,...

One of the years scariest horror movies is all set to land on the streaming platform Shudder next week. And it could make for a wonderfully terrifying cinematic experience this spooky season. Titled Oddity, the horror flick will be available to stream from Friday, September 27. The movie made waves when it premiered at South by Southwest (SXSW) back in March, winning the 2024 SXSW Film & TV Festival Audience Award in the Midnighter section. This tale of a vengeful psychic, who uses cursed objects to track down her twin sisters killer, has made an impression on audiences and critics so far, and it could make an impression on you this Halloween...if youre feeling brave enough to watch.

Written and directed by Damian Mc Carthy, Oddity stars Gwilym Lee, Carolyn Bracken, Tadhg Murphy, Caroline Menton, Steve Wall, and Jonathan French. You can check out the official synopsis for the horror outing below.

Exclusive: Arp Sélection has acquired French distribution rights for Jiří Mádl’s historical thriller Waves, which was recently announced as the Czech Republic’s entry to the Best International Feature Film category at the 97th Academy Awards.

Set during Prague Spring of 1968, the drama follows a radio station employee who finds himself caught between the secret services and his revolutionary brother as the station broadcasts a confidential recording, forcing him to confront history head-on.

Arp Sélection co-head Michèle Halberstadt said the film appealed to her on a number of levels.

“Having been a radio producer for many years, I was personally very touched by the film and how radio always plays an important part in historical upheavals,” she said.

“We at Arp, are very keen to release those kinds of films that bring history to today’s audiences with intelligence and spirit.”

The deal was secured by Paris-based Urban Sales.

Exclusive: Perfect Days, the comeback feature from legendary German filmmaker Wim Wenders, has become boutique operator Curzon Cinemas’s longest-running film after passing 30 continuous weeks this past Friday.

Perfect Days has played at Curzon Bloomsbury in London for 206 continuous days. The film passes Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car, which played for 26 continuous weeks, to become the operator’s longest-running title under modern tracking. Perfect Days is currently the 7th highest-grossing film at Curzon Bloomsbury of all time.

Wenders’s quietly radical, Tokyo-set drama, stars Japanese actor Koji Yakusho as a man with a love of trees and literature who mysteriously opts for a simple life by working as a toilet cleaner. The film debuted in Competition at Cannes in 2023 where Yakusho won Best Actor.

All rights on the film for the UK, Latam, India, and Turkey were acquired by Mubi from The Match Factory at Cannes 2023. The pic recorded...

Exclusive: Kiwi filmmaker Samuel Van Grinsven heads to TIFF this year with Went Up The Hill, a psychological ghost story starring Vicky Krieps and Stranger Things actor Dacre Montgomery. Check out a first look clip from the flick above.

Directed by Van Grinsven from a screenplay he co-wrote with Jory Anast, the film follows Jack, an orphan, who travels to remote New Zealand to attend the funeral of his estranged mother Elizabeth. There he meets her widow, Jill, who has questions of her own. Over the nights that follow, Elizabeth returns and possesses Jack and Jill, using each of their bodies to speak to the other. Jill faces Elizabeth’s suicide, while Jack confronts his abandonment. As they learn she is trapped in limbo, Jack begins to doubt Elizabeth’s reason for returning. Caught in a life-threatening nocturnal dance, Jack and Jill must find a way to let go of...

Las elegidas: ‘Kneecap’, de Rich Peppiatt, y ‘El Baño del Diablo’, de Veronika Franz y Severin Fiala.

El viernes, Irlanda se convirtió en el primer país en anunciar su representante para la categoría de Mejor Película Internacional de los Oscar 2025: Kneecap. Ambientada en el oeste de Belfast en 2019, la película es un biopic que gira en torno a un trío de hip hop que rapea en su lengua materna, el irlandés, para crear su propio género de rap punk irlandés, fusionando la lengua irlandesa y la inglesa con una energía electrizante.

La película seleccionada por Irlanda está escrita y dirigida por Rich Peppiatt (One Rogue Reporter) y protagonizada por los integrantes del trío de rap, Móglai Bap, Mo Chara y DJ Provaí, junto a un elenco que incluye a Michael Fassbender.

Áine Moriarty, Directora General de la Academia IFTA ha dicho: «La Academia Irlandesa está encantada de anunciar que...

The Irish Film & Television Academy (IFTA) has selected Rich Peppiatt’s Kneecap as Ireland’s representative in the Oscars international feature film category for the 2025 awards.

UK-born, Belfast-based filmmaker Peppiatt directs the music biopic of Belfast rap trio Kneecap, that stars the real-life band alongside a cast including Michael Fassbender, Simone Kirby, Josie Walker, Fionnuala Flaherty, Jessica Reynolds and Adam Best.

The film is set in west Belfast in 2019, when fate brings Belfast schoolteacher JJ into the orbit of Naoise and Liam Óg, who form an Irish-language hip-hop act, and become unlikely figureheads for a civil rights movement to save their mother tongue.

The Irish Film & Television Academy (IFTA) has selected Irish language feature Kneecap to represent Ireland in the International Feature Film category of the 97th annual Academy Awards.

Set in West Belfast in 2019, the drama revolves around a hip hop trio who rap in their native Irish language, to create their own genre of Irish punk rap, melding the Irish and English language with electrifying energy.

The film, written and directed by Rich Peppiatt (One Rogue Reporter), stars the members of the West Belfast rap trio Kneecap, Móglai Bap, Mo Chara, and DJ Provaí alongside an ensemble cast including nominee Michael Fassbender, Simone Kirby, Josie Walker, Fionnuala Flaherty, Jessica Reynolds and Adam Best.

Kneecap was selected by IFTA’s 2024 Selection Committee, which includes nominated actor Stephen Rea (The Crying Game, The English); award-winning directors Colm Bairéad (The Quiet Girl) and Lisa Mulcahy (Lies We Tell, Ridley Road); award-winning actors Liam Cunningham (Game of Thrones,...

Seeing double? Well, someone in Oddity isn't seeing at all, but that won't stop her from literally taking names seeking the truth, justice, and a whole lot more. It's a wild tale that showcases the vast talents of Irish actress Carolyn Bracken (star of the Oscar-nominated The Quiet Girl) as twin sisters, one of whom meets her fate too darn early and thus kickstarts a wild ride that will tickle the fancies of horror-thriller fans everywhere.

Written and directed by Damian McCarthy, Oddity may take a wee bit too long for its revenge-karma tale to get off the ground, but once its twisty story levitates into the nailbiting second and third acts, you'll be begging for more by the time the credits roll. IFC Films seems to be scooping up quite a few innovative scary projects these days, following the terrific In a Violent Nature earlier this year. And now,...

Oddity has received an impressive 98% Rotten Tomatoes score from critics, surpassing higher-profile horror films of 2024. Despite having a lower-profile cast and director, Oddity has outpaced big-budget horror flicks in critical acclaim. The strong premise of Oddity, combined with its stellar Rotten Tomatoes score, may lead to success at the box office.

The new 2024 horror film Oddity has made a great Rotten Tomatoes debut. Oddity is a horror-thriller about the fallout of the brutal murder of a woman named Dani in her remote house. The primary suspect is a man from the local mental institution that Dani's husband, Ted, is a doctor at, but years later, Dani's twin sister Darcy comes back to Ted's home, as she suspects that something more sinister is at play surrounding her sister's murder. Oddity was directed by Damian McCarthy and stars a leading cast including Gwilym Lee, Carolyn Bracken, Tadhg Murphy, and Caroline Menton.

Now,...

A new horror film is poised to make a major splash, as the soon-to-be released horror flick has debuted to a rare perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes.

The new horror film from writer-director Damian McCarthy, Oddity, currently holds a 100% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, on the eve of its official release. The new horror film from IFC Films stars Gwilym Lee (Bohemian Rhapsody), Carolyn Bracken (The Quiet Girl), Tadhg Murphy (The Northman), Steve Wall (Dune: Part Two), Jonathan French (Caveat), and the feature debut of Caroline Menton. McCarthy is best known for his 2020 horror film, Caveat, which holds an 82% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. Oddity is produced by Katie Holly, Evan Horan, Mette-Marie Kongsveed, and Laura Tunstall.

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Nicolas Cage delivers a box office shocker with the serial killer horror thriller, Longlegs.

The official synopsis for the film reads, "When Dani is brutally...

Lionsgate has landed domestic distribution rights to “Small Things Like These,” the first film in which Cillian Murphy appears since he won his Oscar for “Oppenheimer.”

Murphy stars in and produced “Small Things Like These,” which made its world premiere at this year’s Berlin Film Festival as the opening night film in competition. The film earned strong reviews, with IndieWire saying Murphy gives another “staggering performance” and that it is “a surprisingly understated film, dour and difficult to watch in places, and firmly rooted in Irish culture and history.” It even won co-star Emily Watson the Silver Bear for her performance.

Lionsgate will partner with Roadside Attractions to release “Small Things Like These” in North America, and Lionsgate also acquired rights in the UK and Ireland. No release date has been set.

Based on Claire Keegan’s novel, “Small Things Like These” takes place over Christmas in 1985, when devoted...

Cillian Murphy’s Oppenheimer follow-up, the Irish drama Small Things Like These, has landed at Lionsgate for North America, the UK and Ireland.

Directed by Tim Mielants, the period drama is adapted from the novel of the same name by Irish writer Claire Keegan — who also wrote the source material for Colm Bairéad’s Oscar-nominated drama The Quiet Girl — and plays out in a small Irish town in 1985 in the weeks before Christmas.

Murphy plays Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man who becomes aware of abuse happening at the local convent, abuse that forces him to confront the trauma of his own childhood and make a moral choice. The backdrop is the real history of the Magdalene Laundries, asylums and workhouses run by the Catholic Church in Ireland purportedly for the purpose of employing and educating “fallen women.”

Lionsgate will partner with Roadside Attractions to release the film theatrically in the U.

It’s been 31 years since Screen Ireland (formerly the Irish Film Board) was re-established by the now President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins. In those years, the government has continued to give strong support to the screen sectors, with the country offering an attractive 32% tax incentive on eligible spend for film and television production. Last year, the country’s government increased its section 481 tax incentive cap on eligible expenditure from €70 million to €125 million in a move to attract larger scale productions.

The country has long proven to be a solid partner for international productions looking to house their projects on the Emerald Isle and Irish production companies have partnered with all the major studios and streamers on a raft of projects ranging from Disney’s Disenchanted to Netflix’s Wednesday to Sony’s The Pope’s Exorcist.

While the industry prides itself most for its depth of talent and crew, its...

Veteran international film executive Rosa Bosch has partnered with Spanish distributor and sales agency Begin Again Films, joining the company’s international department.

Madrid-based Begin Again Films is known for handling arthouse fare such as doc The Year of Discovery, Zaida Carmona’s Girlfriends and Girlfriends and Nestor Ruiz Medina’s 21 Paradise.

Bosch joins as Begin Again also takes on sales for Anna Cornudella’s The Human Hibernation, winner of the Fipresci Award in the Forum section of the Berlinale 2024.

A veteran of the international film industry, Bosch’s career includes roles at AFI Fest, the London Film Festival...

“You can literally film anything in Ireland that you want to — obviously desert scenes are a bit complicated, but we’ll have a go.” In this quick quip, veteran Irish producer Tristan Orpen Lynch sums up so much about his home country’s movie business right now. A fresh swell of opportunity and confidence may be swirling through it, thanks to the government’s decision to allow producers to claim back 32 percent of any spend on film, TV and animation to $134 million, up from $75 million. However, insiders say it’s actually in the midst of a deeper sea change built upon decades of investment, support and training — always combined with the nation’s innate charm and visually striking locales.

In 2021, the Irish screen industry rapidly bounced back after Covid to generate €500 million ($547m) local spend, its highest ever and 40 percent more than the last record set in 2019. Roll on 2023, and...

What does that beautiful, ambiguous ending of The Quiet Girl mean? This year, The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin in Irish) received a much-deserved Oscar nomination for Best International Feature, and with it, Colm Bairéad’s excellent feature debut is sure to rack up a fair share of attention. It's also gone on to become the highest-grossing Irish language film of all time. The Quiet Girl is a wonderful film filled with quiet, beautiful moments, elevated by lush cinematography and succinct performances. Simply, it would make a neat little double feature with Charlotte Wells’s magnificent Aftersun.

Ireland appears to be everywhere on screen at the minute — and it isn’t just a trend.

Where 2022 and 2023 had “The Banshees of Inisherin,” Paul Mescal, “The Quiet Girl” and short film “The Irish Goodbye” making noise throughout awards season, plus John Carney’s “Flora and Son” being snapped up in Sundance by Apple TV+, 2024 has already shown that the Irish industry has become a global force.

Cillian Murphy — who is expected to soon add to his BAFTA leading actor win for “Oppenheimer” with an Oscar — leads the charge this time, followed by “Saltburn” star Barry Keoghan. There’s also Yorgos Lanthimos’ awards-favorite “Poor Things,” produced by Irish powerhouse studio Element Pictures and shot by Dubliner Robbie Ryan (who earned his second Oscar nomination for the film). The Murphy-led and -produced Irish indie “Small Things Like These” just opened the Berlinale to rave reviews, while raucous music biopic “Kneecap...

Welcome to Deadline’s International Disruptors, a feature where we shine a spotlight on key executives and companies outside of the U.S. shaking up the offshore marketplace. Today we’re talking to Stephen Kelliher, co-founder and MD of established London-based sales and film finance outfit Bankside Films. The company played a key role in getting Australian horror hit Talk to Me off the ground and Kelliher walks us through how that project came together as well as Bankside’s hefty EFM slate this year.

Stephen Kelliher is in a good mood. The Bankside Films co-founder and managing director is coming off of the back of a banner 12 months with his London-based sales and film finance outfit, a company that not only repped worldwide sales on Irish-language Oscar nominee The Quiet Girl but also played an integral role in getting Aussie breakout supernatural horror hit Talk to Me off the ground.

Editor’s Note: This review originally published during the 2024 Berlin Film Festival. Lionsate opens “Small Things Like These” in theaters on Friday, November 8.

Opening nights at major festivals often lean towards the showier end of the spectrum, reaching for films with starry, red carpet-friendly casts and headline-grabbing premises to kick off proceedings in flashy style. The past two Berlinales boasted fun but forgettable openers — Rebecca Miller’s “She Came To Me” and Francois Ozon’s “Peter von Kant” — which is why it’s a pleasant surprise that this year’s Berlinale Opening Night offers something altogether subtler, a genuinely profound low-key gem which will be remembered long after the champagne and sequins have been swept away.

On the surface, “Small Things Like These,” produced by and starring the freshly Oscar-nominated Cillian Murphy (and with “Oppenheimer” co-star Matt Damon also on board as producer) fits the Opening Night brief well. In reality,...

Unlike Peter Mullan’s searing 2008 Venice Golden Lion winner, The Magdalene Sisters, or Joni Mitchell’s piercingly sad ballad, “The Magdalene Laundries,” the name given to the notorious workhouse institutions controlled by Irish religious orders is never spoken in Small Things Like These. But its Biblical evocation of the “fallen woman” is clear as a bell in this acutely affecting drama about how a glimpse of cruelty behind convent walls reopens the psychological wounds of a kind family man who has strived to build a life untainted by the stigma and sorrow of his childhood.

That man is Bill Furlong, a hard-working coal merchant and loving father of five daughters, played by Cillian Murphy in a performance that rips your heart out despite being an unimpeachable model of restraint.

The actor’s work here could scarcely be more of a contrast to his fine-grained characterization as the soft-spoken but imposing title figure in Oppenheimer,...

Right from the start, there is no doubt where we are. Narrow, gray streets in the dim daylight of winter, peat hills between cramped villages, a crow sitting on a church spire: this is western Ireland in the ’80s, when the Celtic Tiger was yet to roar and jobs were scarce, divorce was illegal, condoms available only on prescription and central heating unknown.

It is also the Ireland of the Magdalene laundries, businesses run jointly by Church and the Irish state where unwed mothers were consigned to repent of their sins, do hard labor for a living and ultimately deliver their babies for adoption. Academic research estimates that 35,000 women were forced into this service. Around 1,600 women and 6,000 babies are believed to have died behind the convents’ walls. Nobody — apparently — asked why. The last of these institutions closed only in 1996.

In the Berlin Film festival opener Small Things Like These, adapted...

Cillian Murphy, the Irish star of the Berlinale opening night film Small Things Like These, spoke of Ireland’s “collective trauma” and the ability of art to “be a really useful band for that wound” at a press conference ahead of the film’s world premiere later tonight (February 15).

Murphy headlines the first Irish independent feature to open the Berlinale. Set over Christmas 1985, Murphy plays devoted father and coal merchant Bill Furlong, who discovers shocking secrets kept by the convent in his town.

The film is set against the backdrop of Ireland’s Magdalene laundries, asylums run by Roman Catholic...

Cillian Murphy, the Irish star of the Berlinale opening night film Small Things Like These, spoke of Ireland’s “collective trauma” and the ability of art to “be a really useful band for that wound” at a press conference ahead of the film’s world premiere later tonight (February 15).

Murphy headlines the first Irish independent feature to open the Berlinale. Set over Christmas 1985, Murphy plays devoted father and coal merchant Bill Furlong, who discovers shocking secrets kept by the convent in his town.

The film is set against the backdrop of Ireland’s Magdalene laundries, asylums run by Roman Catholic...

With the 2023-24 awards season galloping towards the finish line, the whirlwind of ceremonies, red carpets, dinners and other glitzy occasions for feted stars of the moment to be feted some more is keeping most of the nominees exceptionally busy. Among the busiest must be Cillian Murphy, tipped to add both Oscar and BAFTA wins to the Golden Globe he’s already won for his lead turn in “Oppenheimer.”

But just as his diary demands reach near farcical levels of back-to-back events, the Irish actor is making a quick detour to Germany to open the Berlinale.

Festival curtain-raiser “Small Things Like These” may be a much less explosive film than “Oppenheimer,” but it’s no less thought-provoking or powerful, based on the Booker Prize-nominated book by Claire Keegan. Murphy stars as a Bill, a soft-spoken coal delivery driver in and devoted father in 1980s Ireland who uncovers disturbing activity at...

It continues to be a busy winter for Cillian Murphy, having landed a best actor Oscar nomination for his $1 billion grosser Oppenheimer. Nonetheless, Murphy will be on hand at the Berlin Film Festival for the opening night premiere of his latest film, Small Things Like These.

Directed by Tim Mielants, the period drama is adapted from the novel of the same name by Irish writer Claire Keegan — who also wrote the source material for Colm Bairéad’s Oscar-nominated drama The Quiet Girl — and plays out in a small Irish town in 1985 in the weeks before Christmas. Murphy plays Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man who becomes aware of abuse happening at the local convent, abuse that forces him to confront the trauma of his own childhood and make a moral choice. The backdrop is the real history of the Magdalene Laundries, asylums and workhouses run by the Catholic...

Exclusive: On Thursday, the Berlin Film Festival will kick off with the world premiere of Small Things Like These, starring Cillian Murphy, who also produces, and marking the first time an Irish movie opens the Berlinale. In the exclusive first-look at the 1985-set drama (check it out above), Murphy’s family man Bill Furlong comes face-to-face with Emily Watson’s formidable Sister Mary whose convent is concealing dark and disturbing secrets.

Also starring Eileen Walsh, Michelle Fairley and Zara Devlin, the story plays out in the weeks leading up to Christmas 1985. Bill, a devoted husband, father and coal merchant living in the traditional Irish town of New Ross in County Wexford, is facing his busiest season. During his delivery rounds, he discovers that the local convent is in fact a cruel institution that takes in so-called ‘fallen girls and women.’ His reaction to this discovery forces him to confront some hard truths about the convent,...

Edward Fletcher, the newly-appointed CEO of UK exhibitor and distributor Curzon, has promoted five long-running Curzon execs to key posts in the company’s senior team.

Laura Ferguson is now chief operating officer, taking on management of all Curzon business operations across finance, Hr, technology and business affairs, with a special focus on the financial health of the business.

Ferguson has worked at Curzon for over 17 years, most recently as chief financial officer.

Alex Sheldon has been promoted to managing director cinemas, taking on a broader role in managing Curzon’s cinema businesses from his previous role as director of commercial operations.

Bursting with unruly energy that practically escapes the confines of the screen, “Kneecap” is a riotous, drug-laced triumph in the name of freedom that bridges political substance and crowd-pleasing entertainment. The three members of the eponymous Irish rap group — Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, Naoise Ó Cairealláin, and JJ Ó Dochartaigh — play themselves in this liberally fictionalized reimagining of their origin story set in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Cornerstone to the trio’s artistic ethos is the use of the Irish language (sometimes referred to as Irish Gaelic), to which writer-director Rich Peppiatt (a Brit) remains faithful. The island’s ancient native tongue — once banned by the British and only recognized as an official language in the U.K. in 2022 — is intrinsically tied to the identity of the colonized Irish people, often seen as an emblem of their enduring culture and defiance against British imperialism.

Oscar-nominated “The Quiet Girl,” a quaint drama in Irish,...

With final voting complete, the 96th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 10 and air live on ABC at 8:00 p.m. Et/ 5:00 p.m. Pt. We update predictions through awards season, so keep checking IndieWire for all our 2024 Oscar picks.

The State of the Race

Most contenders in the race for the Best International Feature Film Oscar broke out of film festivals. Of last year’s Oscar nominees, “The Quiet Girl” debuted in Berlin; “Close” and “Eo” won prizes at Cannes, including the shared Grand Prix and Jury Prize, respectively; “Argentina 1985” premiered in Venice; and the eventual winner, “All Quiet on the Western Front,” debuted at Toronto.

Since the award was created in 1956, the Academy invites each country’s film industry to submit their selection for what is now called Best International Feature Film. The movie must contain primarily non-English dialogue, which may explain why France...

‘Small Things Like These’, a historical drama starring Cillian Murphy, is set to open this year’s Berlin Film Festival. The film has been directed by Tim Mielants from a script by Enda Walsh, and will have its world premiere in the festival’s competition on February 15, reports Variety.

It is based on the book of the same name by Claire Keegan, ‘Small Things Like These’, and it “reveals truths about Ireland’s Magdalen laundries — horrific asylums run by Roman Catholic institutions from the 1820s until 1996, ostensibly to reform ‘fallen young women’,” as per its synopsis.

As per Variety, Keegan previously penned ‘Foster’ which was adapted into the Oscar-nominated Irish-language film ‘The Quiet Girl’.

Eileen Walsh, Michelle Fairley and Emily Watson also star in ‘Small Things Like These’.

Murphy plays devoted father and coal merchant Bill Furlong, who during Christmas 1985 “discovers startling secrets kept by the convent in his town,...

Small Things Like These featuring Oppenheimer star Cillian Murphy will open this year’s Berlin International Film Festival.

Murphy plays Bill Furlong, a devoted father and coal merchant living in 1980s Ireland who discovers shocking truths about the infamous Magdalen laundries, the horrific asylums run by the Roman Catholic Church for “fallen women.”

Tim Mielants directed Small Things Like These from a screenplay by Enda Walsh. Emily Watson, Eileen Walsh and Michelle Fairley co-star. Eileen Walsh also starred in Peter Mulllan’s acclaimed 2002 drama The Magdalene Sisters which focused on the Magdalen asylums.

Small Things Like These is based on the book by award-winning Irish writer Claire Keegan, whose novel Foster was adapted as the Oscar-nominated The Quiet Girl.

Small Things Like These will open the 74th Berlinale on Feb. 15, screening in competition.

“With Small Things Like These, Tim Mielants tells the story of a man of few words, with wide open eyes,...

Cillian Murphy movie Small Things Like These will open this year’s Berlinale.

The film reveals truths about Ireland’s Magdalen laundries – horrific asylums run by Roman Catholic institutions from the 1820s until 1996, ostensibly to reform “fallen young women.” It takes place over Christmas in 1985, when devoted father and coal merchant Bill Furlong (Murphy) discovers startling secrets kept by the convent in his town, along with some shocking truths of his own.

The movie reunites director Tim Mielants with Murphy, who previously worked together on series three of Peaky Blinders. It will kick off the Berlinale on February 15.

Small Things Like These is based on the book by the award-winning Irish writer Claire Keegan, who also wrote Foster, which was adapted into the Academy Award-nominated Irish language film An Cailín Ciúin (The Quiet Girl). The film was financed by Artists Equity and Screen Ireland/Fís...

Tim Mielants’ drama Small Things Like These, starring Cillian Murphy, is set to open the 74th Berlin International Film Festival on February 15.

The Ireland-Belgian production will receive its world premiere at the festival and will play in Competition. A first look at Oppenheimer star Murphy in the film can be seen above.

Set over Christmas 1985, Murphy plays devoted father and coal merchant Bill Furlong, who discovers shocking secrets kept by the convent in his town, along with some truths of his own. The cast also includes Eileen Walsh, Michelle Fairley and Emily Watson.

The film is set against the backdrop of Ireland’s Magdalen laundries,...

“Small Things Like These,” a historical drama starring Cillian Murphy, is set to open this year’s Berlin Film Festival.

Directed by Tim Mielants from a script by Enda Walsh, the film will have its world premiere in the festival’s competition on Feb. 15. Based on the book of the same name by Claire Keegan, “Small Things Like These” “reveals truths about Ireland’s Magdalen laundries – horrific asylums run by Roman Catholic institutions from the 1820s until 1996, ostensibly to reform ‘fallen young women,'” according to its synopsis. Eileen Walsh, Michelle Fairley and Emily Watson also star.

Murphy plays devoted father and coal merchant Bill Furlong, who during Christmas 1985 “discovers startling secrets kept by the convent in his town, along with some shocking truths of his own,” as a press release states.

Murphy also produced the film alongside Alan Moloney for their banner Big Things Films with Catherine Magee. Matt Damon...

One of the reasons Rich Peppiatt moved to Belfast was, he claims, for a quieter life with his family away from the London scene. Unfortunately, within a few months he’d become entangled with the hard-partying and anarchic Northern Irish rap group Kneecap and, as the British tabloid journalist turned filmmaker tells Variety, was “rolling home at 7 in the morning on a Tuesday.”

Such nocturnal binges can now, however, be squarely put down as part of a crucial movie-making process. Several years after their first boozy meeting, Peppiatt heads to Sundance with “Kneecap,” his wildly energetic comedy almost-biopic about the three-piece band starring one of cinema’s biggest names: Michael Fassbender.

“Kneecap” is Sundance’s first Irish-language feature. But for all the history-making when it bows in the festival’s Next section on Jan. 18, it may end up being the rappers themselves who steal the headlines. The trio’s unashamedly outspoken and provocative nature,...

What do some of the directors of the best movies of 2023 think about the year in cinema? Films in Frame polled Christian Petzold, Justine Triet, Pedro Costa, Victor Erice, Aki Kaurismäki, Bas Devos, Pham Thien An, Joanna Arnow, Radu Jude, Pedro Costa, Rodrigo Moreno, Lisandro Alonso, and more––and we’ll spotlight one of the best lists, from the Afire director, here.

While he admits he wasn’t able to check out the latest from Albert Serra, Jonathan Glazer, Radu Jude, Yorgos Lanthimos, Kelly Reichardt, Aki Kaurismäki, and Hirokazu Kore-eda, he did find time for this year’s Palme d’Or winner, Mexico’s 2023 Oscar entry, Ireland’s 2022 Oscar entry, and of course, the latest from one of his favorite actors on the planet, Gerard Butler.

Check out Petzold’s picks below and visit Films in Frame to see more lists.

The Quiet Girl (Colm Bairead)

Anatomy of a Fall...

Screen is profiling every submission for best international feature at the 96th Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...

Screen is profiling every submission for best international feature at the 96th Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...

Screen is profiling every submission for best international feature at the 96th Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...

Exclusive: New Europe Film Sales has boarded international sales on Northern Irish director Aislinn Clarke’s second feature Fréwaka ahead of the AFM, where it will unveil first footage.

The Irish and English-language production follows Clarke’s 2018 found footage horror The Devil’s Doorway, which was acquired by IFC for the U.S.

Billed as the first ever Irish-language horror, Fréwaka revolves around care worker Shoo, who is haunted by a personal tragedy.

Shoo is sent to a remote village to care for an agoraphobic woman, who fears both the neighbors and the Na Sídhe – sinister folkloric entities she believes abducted her decades before.

As the pair develop a deep connection, Shoo becomes consumed by the old woman’s paranoia, rituals, and superstitions, eventually confronting the horrors from her own past.

The title originates from the Irish word “fréamhacha”, meaning roots that are entwined underground.

The cast features Clare Monnelly (Moone...