Irish Film Institute -International Film Directory – Film Listing

The Eclipse

    • Director

      Conor McPherson

    • Credits

      Producer:
      Robert Walpole

      Writers:
      Conor McPherson,
      Billy Roche

    • Principal Cast

      Ciarán Hinds,
      Aidan Quinn,
      Iben Hjejle,
      Jim Norton.

  • Category

    Feature
    Horror

Michael (Ciarán Hinds), a widower with two children and a dying father-in-law (Jim Norton), is a volunteer at a literary festival in a picturesque seaside town (Cobh, Co Cork). While chaufering festival guests, he meets gothic novelist Lena Morelle (Iben Hjejle), and Nicholas Holden (Aidan Quinn), a bad-tempered, best-selling author in hot pursuit. The awkward love-triangle that emerges between them, however, is interrupted by the dead and dying, with spectral presences continually stalking Michael.

Director Conor McPherson, co-author of the screenplay with playwright Billy Roche, delivers a mature and enigmatic love story tinged with the supernatural in this tightly crafted picture of loss and haunting.

Available on DCP in a digital restoration, from original 35mm elements, created by the IFI Irish Film Archive for IFI’s Digital Restoration Project funded by Screen Ireland/Fís Éireann, completed in 2025.

Awards:
Best Film Award at the 7th Irish Film and Television Awards 2010
Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Aidan Quinn) Award at the 7th Irish Film and Television Awards 2010
Best Script for Film Award at the 7th Irish Film and Television Awards 2010

88 minutes, Ireland, 2009, Colour

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