Irish Abroad: Rebecca Daly’s Mammal selected for two of Europe’s most prestigious festivals

The new Irish feature film Mammal starring Academy Award® nominated and Golden Globe® winning actress Rachel Griffiths (Six Feet Under, Muriel’s Wedding) and rising Irish star Barry Keoghan (Love/Hate, ’71) continues its run of festival selections with the news that it will have its European premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in the Netherlands and that it is also selected for Gothenburg International Film Festival in Sweden which is Scandinavia’s largest film event.

The announcements come ahead of the film’s world premiere at the A-list Sundance Film Festival later this month. Mammal is the story of Margaret (Rachel Griffiths), a separated woman living alone in Dublin, who learns that her teenage son has been found dead. Enduring her unsettling grief privately, she escapes daily to the local swimming pool. One day at the pool she runs into Joe (Barry Keoghan), a homeless youth she found injured late one night in the deserted laneway behind her work. Margaret offers Joe a room in her house and an unorthodox relationship starts to develop between them. Margaret’s ex- husband Matt (Michael McElhatton) begins to turn up randomly in Margaret’s life. As Margaret and Joe’s mutual reliance grows their tentative trust is threatened by the escalation of Matt’s grieving rage and Joe’s involvement with a gang of violent youths.

Written by Rebecca Daly and Glenn Montgomery, the film is being produced by Macdara Kelleher for Fastnet Films (Strangerland, Kisses, The Other Side of Sleep) with co-producers Calach Films in Luxembourg and Rinkel Film in The Netherlands. In addition to Griffiths and Keoghan the film features Michael McElhatton, Johnny Ward, Aoife King, Joanne Crawford, Nika McGuigan, and Annabell Rickerby.

The film was funded by Bord Scannán na hEireann / the Irish Film Board (IFB), Luxembourg Film Fund, BAI, TV3, the Dutch Film Fund and the Dutch Production incentive, Mammal will be released for Irish audiences by Wildcard Distribution next year.

Mammal will be joined in Rotterdam by Jerzy Skolimowski’s Irish/Polish co-production 11 Minutes and Fiona Tan’s Irish/Dutch/German co-production History’s Future. That latter film competes for the Hivos Tiger Awards Competition at the festival.

International Film Festival Rotterdam takes place 27th January – 7th February. Gothenburg International Film Festival takes place 29th January – 8th February.