Changeling horror You Are Not My Mother will be arriving in Irish cinemas this Spring, with Wildcard Distribution that they will be releasing the film across Irish cinemas from 4th March.
The debut feature by director Kate Dolan, You Are Not My Mother has been a hit on the festival circuit, having been named as first runner up for the People’s Choice Award in the Midnight Madness strand of last year’s Toronto International Film Festival.
The film was funded through Screen Ireland’s POV scheme, a production funding initiative for female filmmakers which aims to foster distinct Irish female voices. You Are Not My Mother is produced by Deirdre Levins and executive produced by Brendan McCarthy and John McDonnell of Ireland’s own Fantastic Films, as well as Screen Ireland’s Celine Haddad.
Starring Carolyn Bracken and Hazel Doupe, You Are Not My Mother tells the story of Char, a young woman who lives in a North Dublin housing estate with her mother, Angela and her grandmother Rita. Lately Char’s mother has been unwell and confined to her bedroom. One day, after being forced to drive Char to school, Angela goes missing without a trace. The family fears the worst. However, a day later she returns and seems to be well again. Char, just happy to see her mother well again ignores her mother’s increased strange behaviour until it is too late. Something malevolent has made itself at home. Char must take action before she loses her mother forever.
Speaking to Film In Dublin last November, Dolan described how much she wanted to draw from Irish folk tales, but bring them into a Dublin setting:
I’m from North Dublin and my granny would have been very superstitious growing up, telling us all these mad stories. She grew up in the tenements in town so we’re not rural at all, as a family. I was always kind thinking hey, why in these movies is it always a cabin in the middle of nowhere in the woods and in rural Ireland? So the film is set very much in the urban and is very identifiably Dublin. Those mythologies and neurosis can exist in that urban setting where you have neighbors all around you, we wanted to have a fresh take on that folklore element so that it can exist in the modern and the urban and you see how that almost makes it more scary in a way, it could be right under your nose, but you don’t really know it.
Film fans will get an early chance to see You Are Not My Mother when it screens at this year’s Dublin International Film Festival. It won’t be long after before audiences across Ireland will be giving their mammy’s the side eye.