The latest short film by Irish director Megan K. Fox now has an online release. The director of The Shift, Calling Home and more has been a regular on the Irish festival circuit over the last few years, and after similar success at festivals over the last year, Cailín Álainn is out now to view online.
Cailín Álainn is a tender bi-lingual drama about a transgender teen who comes out for the first time attending a cross dress disco in the Gaeltacht.
Told with heart and care, the short offers an honest but hopeful look at young people in Ireland uncovering their identity. The use of the Irish language and Gaeltacht setting carries a subtle, smart sense of the markers we hold that tell us who we are, and the places where they may not align with what we first see.
The short is available to view online from today over on Vimeo.
The film was made under the inaugural Kerry Arts Council Short Film Bursary 2018. Written and
directed by Fox, Cailín Álainn was produced by Hazel Cullen for TW Films and shot by DIFF Discovery Award winning Director Of Photography Burschi Wojnar, the production took place in the beautiful Gaeltacht region of Chorca Dhuibhne on the Dingle Peninsula to shoot in Spring 2019.
The short’s festival run was somewhat hampered by the pandemic, but still saw the film screen at Academy affiliated festivals including Newport Beach Film Festival, the Galway Film Fleadh and Virgin Media Dublin International Film Festival in 2020, along with screenings at the BAFTA qualifying Aesthetica Film Festival and a coveted nomination for the most prestigious LGBTQ+ short film award in the world, the Iris Prize.
Speaking about the film, Fox said:
‘I wanted to write a story about how modern values interact with tradition in our country, and how some of our more seemingly outdated customs could be reframed to offer safe spaces to young people finding their way when it comes to gender exploration and sexuality. We had an incredibly talented team on board from our DP Burschi Wojnar to our fabulous costume designer Gwen Jeffares-Hourie, and a cast of eager and bold young actors ready to dig their teeth in to complex roles. It was a tough shoot but I was blessed with my crew and I’m so thankful to the Kerry Arts Council for taking a chance on our project and believing it is a story worth telling in this community.’
The filmmakers are excited to finally share the film with a broader audience online and hope that it will ignite conversation and give hope to young people who are undergoing their own journeys of self
discovery. With strong performances and a emotive filmmaking, it should be able to do just that.
Along with Sean O’Connor’s A White Horse and Janet Grainger’s animated documentary Outside the Box, the film will be shown at the aGLIFF festival in Austin Texas in association with GAZE, ensuring the best of Irish filmmaking continues to get eyes on it abroad.
Having cut her teeth on Fair City, Fox will soon be making her to the soap world across the way too. The director is set to work on directing episodes of Eastenders in the new year. Having worked as Gaeilge in her latest short, the director has expressed interest also in working on Irish language television projects at home.