Presented by Northern Ireland Screen & 23Ten Productions
Premiered at the 2018 Seattle International Film Festival
Written and directed by Aislinn Clarke
Screenplay by Martin Brennan, Michael B. Jackson, Aislinn Clarke
Cast: Lalor Roddy, Ciaran Flyn, Helena Bereen, Lauren Coe, Carleen Melaugh, Dearbhail Carr, and Charlie Bonner
Tue Jan 12, 3pm
Thu Jan 28, 8pm
Tickets at $5
Written and directed by the trailblazing director Aislinn Clarke, “The Devil’s Doorway” (2018) made history by becoming by becoming the first Irish woman to write and direct a feature-length horror film.
The riveting story of two priests sent by the Vatican to investigate a miraculous event in an Irish home for “fallen women.” What they uncover is much more horrific than they ever imagined.
Thoughtfully filmed using found-footage techniques this 77-minute feature, set in 1960, recreates the real-life horrors of the infamous Magdelene Laundry, a forced labor home for homeless and indigent girls that, like many similar borstals and orphanages, created a living hell for its residents, often under the direction of the Church.
Significantly for Ms. Clarke, “The Devil’s Doorway” had its world premiere in Seattle on the night of the historical referendum overturning Ireland’s constitutional ban on abortion. The European premiere took place in Galway, close to a mass grave of 400 babies and children discovered at a Mother and Baby home in Tuam, which influenced the story.
Clarke declares in her director’s statement for the film, “As a teenage mother, I had my son in the year after the last laundry closed in 1996; I was not far off from being one of those girls myself. Thus, it was important to me that the first horror feature made by a woman in Ireland confront the horrors of being a woman in Ireland, rather than exploiting that real horror.”