TEA Tenerife Arts Space will be screening Colm Bairéad’s “The quiet girl” (An Cailín Ciúin, 2022) from Friday 31 March to Sunday 2 April at 19:00. The film – an Irish-language adaptation of Claire Keegan’s acclaimed short story Foster – uncovers a story with immense emotional depth, revolving around family, love and loss and set in rural Ireland in 1981. Catherine Clinch leads the cast of this film, which also stars Carrie Crowle and Andrew Bennett.
A double award-winner at the Berlinale and winner of the Silver Spike, the Audience Award and the Critics’ Prize at the Valladolid Film Festival, The Quiet Girl is the highest-grossing Irish-language film in history and has been received in England as an instant classic. The film, which is shown in its original English with Spanish subtitles, was nominated for an Oscar for Best International Film, marking the first nomination for an Irish-language film in the history of the awards.
Cáit is a nine-year-old girl from a large, dysfunctional and poor family. Struggling at school and at home, she has learned to hide from those around her. When summer arrives and her mother, who is pregnant again, is due to give birth, Cáit is sent to distant relatives. Not knowing when she will return home, she is left at the home of this almost unknown couple with only the clothes on her back. The Kinsellas, a middle-aged couple, dress the girl in clothes from their wardrobe. They are also farmers, but hard-working and seem to lack for nothing.
Despite the warm welcome of the woman, Eibhlín, the man of the house, Seán, keeps his distance from Cáit, and she from him. But in moderate weather, their strained relationship begins to grow closer. Gradually, with the Kinsella’s care, Cáit blossoms and discovers a new way of life. But in this house where affection grows and there are supposed to be no secrets, she will discover a painful truth.
Colm Bairéad (Dublin) was fascinated by cinema from an early age, nurtured by his father, who introduced him to silent films, early Hollywood musicals and 1940s black and white cinema. After a teenage years of experimenting with short film production, Colm studied film at the Dublin Institute of Technology.
His first commissioned short film after university was Mac an Athar (His Father’s Son), a semi-autobiographical film about an Irish-speaking family in Dublin, which was successful on the international festival circuit. His documentary output has earned him numerous nominations and awards internationally and from the Irish Academy of Film and Television. In 2012, Colm received an award from the Screen Directors’ Guild of Ireland for his outstanding work as an Irish-language director.
