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Director
Peter Mullan
Credits
Producer: Frances Higson. Writer: Peter Mullan
Principal Cast
Nora-Jane Noone, Anne-Marie Duff, Dorothy Duffy, Geraldine McEwan, Eileen Walsh
Category
Feature
An unflinching and compelling film depicting a shameful episode in Irish history, The Magdalene Sisters dramatises the experience of women incarcerated in Ireland’s notorious Magdalene Asylums, known as ‘Magdalene Laundries’. The story focuses on the lives of three women in 1964 – Margaret (Anne-Marie Duff), Bernadette (Nora-Jane Noone), and Patricia (Dorothy Duffy) – forced to work in the laundry for reasons of perceived disgrace in the community. The three women deal with physical, mental, and sexual abuse at the hands of the religious orders controlling them, as the community and local authorities stand-by implicit by their inaction. With escape seeming impossible, the film explores the different responses the women have to their imprisonment. This incendiary film, directed by Peter Mullan in 2002, won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival; it would be another eleven years before the Irish government would provide a State apology to the women sent to the ‘Laundries’.
119 minutes, Ireland/UK/USA, 2002, Colour
ARCHIVE AT LUNCHTIME: BRITISH & IRISH (PROGRAMME 2) 12.50
CROSSING 15.20, 20.55
HEART OF AN OAK 18:00
LA CHIMERA 20.30
SHAYDA 13.00 (OC), 18.00
SLEEP 13.15
THAT THEY MAY FACE THE RISING SUN 18.30
THE COMMANDANT’S SHADOW 13.40
THE CONVERSATION 50TH ANNIVERSARY 4K RESTORATION 16.00
The IFI is supported by The Arts Council