For Zara Devlin, revealed in 2022 to the Irish public with Ann for her incarnation of Ann Lovett, a 15-year-old young woman who died in 1984 with her child during a clandestine birth, this film is part of the lineage of stories of women who make their way through the barriers of secrecy in contemporary Ireland. “In preparing for this role, I did a lot of research and more and more documentaries, books and stories are emerging. I discovered the history of the Magdalen convents with the film Eileen starred in in 2002, and it had a profound impact on me. I am very happy that the floor is being freed today.“
This story was truly engraved in the DNA of an entire generation of Irish people, and the very powerful taboo associated with it
And Eileen Walsh continues: “It’s very cathartic, not only for the Irish people, but also because these types of Church practices didn’t only take place in Ireland. This story is universal in that sense, and many people will be able to find the courage to speak out thanks to it. I think that, generally speaking, the stories that are told are often men’s stories, while those that need to be told are women’s stories. Sharing these stories is not only necessary, but also extremely well done by Claire Keegan in her book through Bill’s point of view, and the pressure that is put on women but also on society in general. Women have long been used as instruments of control by religions, not only bullying them but also using them, like these sisters who are depicted on screen. A whole hierarchy of pain was put in place, and which we must be able to denounce.“
Without fading away in his directing work, Tim Mielants was – for the two actresses – an ideal collaborator to carry this story. Both Devlin and Walsh confide that they felt total confidence from the filmmaker, giving them both the freedom to interpret these characters while accompanying them in this performance and this brutal but necessary representation of Irish society, where many Taboos around femininity are still present today.
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“I remember in my high school blazer“, confides Devlin, “There was a small interior pocket in the lapel of the jacket intended specifically for storing sanitary protection, to prevent them from falling out of our pocket inadvertently. That would not have been appropriate.“
“There is still shame and silence in contemporary Irish society“, adds Walsh, “That is, until someone raises their voice. And suddenly we realize that many stories agree. Tim succeeds in making the weight of this silence shine through in History and in the narrative of the film, he even embraces it and this contributes to the success of the film.”
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