The Irish film THE QUIET GIRL was in the Berlinale youth section “Generation Kplus“ and won both the International Jury Prize as well as the Children’s Jury Prize. The film is now opening in cinemas, and isn’t just meant for children. The emotional power of Colm Bairéad’s directing and the virtuoso camerawork by Kate McCullough, who won the European Film Prize for this film, turns what is a simple story into an extraordinary film.


The film is about Cáit, who comes from a poor family with many siblings, an alcoholic, unloving and arrogant father and a completely overwhelmed mother. Cáit begins the film being very shy and passive. Her parents send her to the countryside to Eibhlín, the mother’s older sister, and her husband Seán, over the summer. Eibhlín is immediately loving and interested in the neglected Cáit. Seán starts off being quiet and dismissive, until a neighbor makes a joke about her being quiet. “She talks when there’s something to say,“ Seán answers, and a bond between him and Cáit is made. There aren’t any other children close to Eibhlín and Seán’s remote farm, but Cáit blossoms in the friendly environment and develops very different relationships with the gentle, chatty Eibhlín and calm Seán, It’s going to be a happy summer for Cáit, who will soon find out why Seán was so unapproachable at first and why she sees sad looks behind Eibhlín’s friendliness.

THE QUIET GIRL has the best lighting of all of this year’s European films. Kate McCullough is a master of camera school of “justified light,“ as cinematographer Nestor Almendros (DAYS OF HEAVEN) called it. Her images manage to recreate the actual light of a scene as much as possible, and so the external shots shine in the sometimes milky, sometimes blazingly bright Irish daylight, while the interior shots show sunshine through the windows and the soft indirect light in shady rooms perfectly, lending faces the transparent magic of Vermeer paintings. For that alone, it is worth going to the cinema for adults too, not to mention the fact that a sensitive film about healing the wounds of grief, hurt and ignorance is good for everyone.

Tom Dorow

Translation: Elinor Lewy