Oscar nominee ‘The Quiet Girl’ makes Irish film history
“The Quiet Girl,” nominated for Best International Feature, is Ireland’s history-making Oscar entry: The first- ever Irish language film to score Academy Award attention in the category previously called Best Foreign Language Picture.
Adapted from “Foster,” Claire Keegan’s “long short story,” “Quiet Girl” is set over 40 years ago, in 1981, in an Ireland very different from today. A young girl journeys from her overcrowded home to spend the summer with a distant middle-aged cousin and her husband. There she finds compassion, love and a sense of personal worth, leaving filmgoers happily sobbing at its end.
It was vital for writer- director Colm Bairéad in his feature directing debut to keep its 40 years ago setting. “The primary thing is this practice of sending children off to family members for extended periods of time was a very common social practice in years past. That’s essentially vanished,” he said.
“It speaks to a time — and this was part of the impulse to make the film — when children were in some ways less valued in our society. There was an expectation that children should be seen and not heard perhaps. I was born in 1981 and I’m fascinated by the Ireland that I was born into.
“It’s a complicated society and we’re still grappling with issues and processing ways in which we, perhaps, failed as a newly independent nation in many ways. One of those ways was in the treatment of children. The impulse to make the film was in a sense, a compassionate response to a child from an older Ireland and give her a voice that was perhaps denied to many children in times past.”
For Bairéad, who is married to Cleona Ní Chrualaoí, his producer, “Quiet Girl” couldn’t be in any other language than Irish. “From birth I was raised in Dublin City in a bilingual household,” he said of growing up speaking English and Irish.
“My father has never spoken English to me. Irish has always been a part of my life. I did all of my schooling through the Irish language. I’ve made a lot of documentaries, TV and short films over the years. All my film work prior to this had been in the Irish language as well.”
“Quiet Girl” was the first Irish language film to open Dublin’s Film Festival, had 10 nominations at the Irish Film and Television Academy Awards, winning seven including best film. A box- office hit wherever it’s played, “Obviously, that it managed to get two BAFTA nominations and of course, the Academy Award nomination is,” he said, “the stuff of dreams really!”