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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
BLACKBIRD BLACKBIRD BLACKBERRY 12:00, 17:50
KIDNAPPED 19:00
LOVE LIES BLEEDING 14:20, 16:40
PERFECT DAYS 12:45
THAT THEY MAY FACE THE RISING SUN 12.20, 14.40, 17.00, 19.20
THE TEACHERS’ LOUNGE 20.10
WORLD CINEMA PROJECT: THE HOUSEMAID 15.30
The IFI is supported by The Arts Council