Achill film to premiere in Venice

ON LOCATION Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson in a scene from ‘The Banshee of Inishern’.

Anton McNulty

A Martin McDonagh starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson which was shot largely on Achill Island last autumn will go on general release this October.
Last September, Achill experienced a taste of Hollywood when Oscar-winning writer and director Martin McDonagh shot his latest film ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ on the island with leading Irish actors Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell among the star-studded cast.
It was announced last week that The Banshees of Inisherin will premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September, and will be released in theatres on October 21, via Searchlight Pictures.
The film will be on general release worldwide and is eagerly awaited by film critics and fans alike as it will be the first film since In Bruges when McDonagh has worked with both Gleeson and Farrell.
The first images which were released to Vanity Fair  showed the legendary Irish actors in a rural location on the west coast of Ireland, including the Atlantic Drive on Achill where many scenes were shot.
The film follows two male friends on a remote Irish island during the time of the Irish Civil War. With the two men finding themselves on different sides of the war, one of them decides that they cannot be friends anymore.
Speaking to Vanity Fair about the film, McDonagh said he wanted the film and its location ‘to be as beautiful as possible’.
“I wanted it to be as beautiful as possible,” McDonagh said. “To aim for beauty and for cinema. Because if you heard of a story of two guys grumbling at each other, and you didn’t have the epic kind of beauty, it might get a little tiresome.”