Set in rural, pre-famine Ireland, a time when poverty and magic were accepted as facts of life, this is the haunting tale of a young girl’s discovery of her own powers through a ‘a wild, ungodly man’ and the passage it offers her into a magical world of imagination and beauty. Starring Mary Ryan, Mick Lally and Cyril Cusack, Robert Wynne-Simmon’s film won the top award at the 1985 Brussels festival of fantasy films. It tells the strange love story of Michael (Lally) and Maura (Ryan). Accused of witchcraft by her friends and family, Maura is forced to employ real magic as protection against her violent exclusion from the community.

Wynne combines elements of horror, comedy and inescapable tragedy with moments of supernatural beauty to produce an intelligent and visually stunning directorial debut.