World Premiere

Short Synopsis:

After retreating to the West of Ireland to recover from the sudden death of their infant daughter, Martha and Tomas foster a disturbed 8-year-old girl, Daisy who has lost her entire family to tragic accidents.  The locals warn Martha and Tomas that Daisy is an evil fairy changeling but to Martha, Daisy is the child she has always longed for.

Review:

Following the tragic death of their daughter, young couple Martha and Tomas move to a remote Irish village. There they take under their wing Daisy, an autistic child whose own parents have died in a strangely ritualistic fire. Daisy seems to settle in with the couple, and Martha finds a kindred spirit in her grief, but a growing antagonism towards the young girl from the locals, linking her to strange occurrences and uncovering tales of faeries, changelings and the malevolent spirits of a bygone age.

With a setting reminiscent of ‘The Wicker Man’, laced with the fear of an unworldly child raised in such films as ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ and ‘The Omen’, Aisling Walsh’s first feature since the multi-award winning ‘Song for a Raggy Boy’ blends the supernatural with raw real-world emotions, wonderfully expressed by Samantha Morton as Martha. Amongst a stand-out cast, including Steven Mackintosh and Eva Birtwhistle, it is 10 year old Mhairi Anderson, as Daisy, who gives the most stunning performance.  A troubled young girl, an innocent child and at the same time feared by the witch-hunting locals, this young actress keeps us guessing of the terrifying conclusion.

AStJ