Indie distributor Super has picked up North American rights to Colm Bairéad’s The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin), an Irish-language drama set in rural Ireland in the 1980s.
The feature premiered at the Berlin Film Festival this year, won the Grand Prix for best film in the Generation Kplus sidebar and was recently picked to represent Ireland in the 2023 Oscar race in the best international feature category.
The Quiet Girl took the Audience Award and the best Irish film honor at the Dublin International Film Festival this year and swept the Irish Film & Television Academy Awards, taking seven trophies, including best film, best director and best lead actress for lead Catherine Clinch.
Newcomer Clinch plays Cáit, a quiet, neglected girl who is sent away from her overcrowded, dysfunctional family to live with her mother’s relatives for the summer. She blossoms in their care, but discovers the family is hiding a painful secret.
Bairéad adapted the screenplay from the story Foster by Irish author, Claire Keegan. Carrie Crowley, Andrew Bennett, Michael Patric and Kate Nic Chonaonaigh co-star. Bankside Films are handling international sales.
The Quiet Girl has been a sleeper hit on the emerald isle, earning close to $1 million (€900,000) at the box office to become the highest-grossing Irish-language film of all time.
Produced by Cleona Ní Chrualaoi of Inscéal, The Quiet Girl was developed and produced as part of the Cine4 Irish-language feature film scheme and financed by Screen Ireland, Irish-language broadcaster TG4 and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland.
Super recently released the Bianca Stigter-directed documentary Three Minutes – A Lengthening and had success with Jasmila Zbanic’s Oscar-nominated Bosnian war drama Quo Vadis, Aida? in 2021.
