This film screened on Wednesday 16th August 2017.

This film is F-Rated. Find out more here. 

Ireland 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 Glen), 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.Director Aisling Walsh, who had recently directed the Magdalene institution drama Sinners (2002), here adapts Patrick Galvin’s memoir, to create an unflinching and memorable depiction of the crimes perpetrated upon innocent victims in Ireland’s industrial schools.

Director Aisling Walsh will introduce this screening.

Aisling Walsh’s new film Maudie is at the IFI from Friday August 4th.

Notes by Sunniva O’Flynn