Following a sold-out premiere screening at this year’s Audi Dublin International Film Festival, The Secret Scripture will open at the Irish Film Institute on Friday, March 24th. Director Jim Sheridan will attend the opening night screening at 20.15, which will then be followed by a Q&A.
After an eclectic range of films in recent years, Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot, In America) returns to Ireland with this adaptation of Sebastian Barry’s acclaimed novel. Rose (played the inimitable Vanessa Redgrave) is the last patient remaining in a psychiatric hospital, firmly refusing transferal to another facility. Dr. William Grene (Eric Bana) is called in, and his sympathetic approach leads Rose to recount the story of how, as a young woman (Rooney Mara) in Sligo, she met and fell in love with Michael McNulty (Jack Reynor), arousing the jealousy of the local priest.
Directed with a sure hand, this is a touching and poignant story, with an undertow of anger at Rose’s treatment, and that of so many women of her time.
The Secret ScriptureSix-time Academy Award nominee Sheridan co-wrote the screenplay with the late Johnny Ferguson. Director of photography Mikhail Krichman worked on the brilliant Russian film Leviathan, and composer Brian Byrne has previously worked with Sheridan on In America. It is edited by Dermot Diskin (Wake Wood, Moscow Never Sleeps), with production design by Derek Wallace (Good Vibrations, The Sea).
Filmed on location in Dublin, Kilkenny and Sligo, The Secret Scripture, is produced by Noel Pearson and Rob Quigley for Ferndale Films in association with Voltage Pictures. It is financed by the Irish Film Board, the Ingenious Senior Film Fund, Apollo Media, and the European Media Fund.
Tickets for the opening night screening of The Secret Scripture + Q&A are now on sale from www.ifi.ie and the IFI Box Office – 01-6793477.
The Secret Scripture will be released nationwide by Wildcard Distribution on March 24th.