A grieving American filmmaker (Dale Dickey) and her Irish assistant (Judith Roddy) tour the west of Ireland, researching a film about Granuaile, the legendary 16th century rebel and ‘pirate queen’. The women develop an uneasy intimacy as they journey towards a remote Atlantic island, where boundaries begin to blur between past and present, myth and history, dream and reality, presenting a wide-eyed American beguiled by Ireland. Filmed on granular 16mm with a swoony orchestral score, the film is playful but assured in its homage to an earlier cinema aesthetic while the film’s locations provide a majestic backdrop to the action.
The Cry of Granuaile is the first feature funded through the Arts Council’s Authored Works initiative, and we are proud to have its UK premiere as part of Irish Film Festival London.