The Irish Film Institute announces an in-depth exploration of the work of filmmaker Aisling Walsh this August to coincide with the release of her new film, Maudie, which opens on August 4th.
Despite her relatively small body of work, Aisling Walsh has established herself as one of the Ireland’s most respected filmmakers in both feature film and television formats. A graduate in Fine Art from Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art Design and Technology and the National Film School at Beaconsfield, her celebrated work as a writer and director includes some of the most acclaimed Irish films in recent years.
Maudie, Walsh’s latest project, is a biopic of Canadian artist Maud Lewis, set in Nova Scotia. Though crippled with debilitating arthritis, Maudie (Sally Hawkins) finds a job as a cleaning lady for taciturn fisherman (Ethan Hawke), living in his tiny shack on the edge of Marshalltown. When Maudie picks up a paintbrush one day, she discovers a talent for brightly-coloured art, covering the house in pastoral scenes which later become a local sensation. Walsh has crafted a portrait of an unlikely couple that is intimate, complex and compelling.
On Tuesday, August 15th at 18.30 Walsh will be joined in conversation by her frequent collaborator, film producer Tristan Orpen Lynch, for an in-depth exploration of her career to date. In a presentation liberally illustrated with clips, she will discuss her acclaimed work including Sinners (2002), Fingersmith (2005), and Wallander (2012); her feature films Joyriders (1998), Daisy Chain (2007), Song for a Raggy Boy (2003), and her current masterpiece Maudie (2016).
Walsh will return to the IFI on Wednesday, August 16th at 18.30 to attend a screening of her 2003 film, Song for a Raggy Boy. Set in Ireland in 1939, Franklin (Aidan Quinn), a newly appointed lay teacher at a boys’ reformatory, is shocked by the school’s culture of brutality. The boys are subjected to a regime of torture and degradation by cruel Brother John (Iain Glenn), while a paedophile, who rapes and abuses his pick of the boys, is willingly accommodated by the staff. The horrors become increasingly sadistic forcing Franklin to take action.
Tickets for Maudie, Aisling Walsh In Conversation and Song for a Raggy Boy are on sale now from the IFI Box Office on (01) 6795744 and from www.ifi.ie.