School friends, cautious Kate (Maeve Germaine) and brazen Baba (Jill Doyle), yearn to escape their small-town lives of dull mediocrity. Their boisterous antics lead to expulsion from their convent school and catch the eye of local solicitor Mr Gentleman (Sam Neill) who introduces teenage Kate to the world of adult relationships.

The film saw the reuniting of Desmond Davis and Edna O’Brien, who had collaborated on Girl with Green Eyes (1964) and I Was Happy Here (1966) twenty years earlier. Davis displays sensitivity to O’Brien’s screenplay as he celebrates the innocence and exuberance of her heroines. Made for Channel 4, with a limited theatrical release in Ireland, the film was shot in Dublin and Wicklow with a cast of familiar Irish stalwarts such as Des Nealon,  John Kavanagh, Niall Tobin, and Anna Manahan.

Presented by the IFI and the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI).

Notes by Sunniva O’Flynn.