KATHLEEN IS HERE
Sunday, March 2 • 7:30 PM • T1
Q&A with director and writer Eva Birthistle and lead actor Hazel Doupe in conversation with Festival Director Maedhbh Mc Cullagh | Welcome by Ireland’s Deputy Ambassador to the United States, Fionnuala Quinlan. Followed by an exclusive closing festival reception for all ticket and festival pass holders at McGinty’s.
Dramatic Feature | East Coast Premiere | Award Winning Woman Director | Feature Debut | Guest Reception
Screening generously sponsored by Irish Network DC
Kathleen is 18 and fresh out of foster care. Her departure coincides with the death of her biological mother and so she returns to her hometown to take ownership of her mother’s house. Kathleen gets a job and even a friend, but the emptiness of her life cannot be filled by social media and reality shows. Alone and desperate for a mother figure, she sets out on a destructive path to find one. What does the future hold when the past is all you've got?
DIR/SCR Eva Birthistle; PROD Claire McCaughley. Ireland, 2024, color, 95 min. NOT RATED
AWARDS: Bingham Ray New Talent Award (Eva Birthistle) - Galway Film Fleadh 2024
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Please call 301-495-6720 between M-F, 9 AM - 5:30 PM or email silverinfo@AFI.com
Eva Birthistle is best known as a multi-award-winning actress. Her 25-year career has seen her work with directors including Ken Loach (Ae Fond Kiss), Neil Jordan (Breakfast On Pluto) & John Crowley (Brooklyn). She currently plays Ursula in Sharon Horgan’s AppleTV+ series BAD SISTERS. Having recently turned her hand to writing and directing, her short film KATHLEEN WAS HERE (2020) earned Eva the Indie Corks Best Emerging Irish Female Director Award & IMDB New Filmmaker Award. KATHLEEN IS HERE (2024) Is Eva’s directorial feature debut which recently had its World Premiere at the Raindance Film Festival London and its Irish Premiere at Galway Film Fleadh, where Eva won the Bingham Ray New Talent Award.
Hazel Doupe is an Irish actress and perhaps best known for her breakthrough role as Frances in the 2018 coming-of-age film Float Like a Butterfly. Doupe started her career as a guest star in the episode 'Shot Down' of the second series of the TV3 drama series Jack Taylor. In 2015, Doupe starred as Wendy Darling/Lucy Rose in the modern-day television adaption of Peter Pan, which was broadcast on 26 December 2015 on ITV. In 2017, she starred in Michael Inside. In 2021, Doupe portrayed Ingrid in the RTÉ One thriller drama series Smother. Doupe starred in You Are Not My Mother and The Ulysses Project. She is the voice of Melinda in the Adult Swim series Unicorn: Warriors Eternal. Hazel has just completed filming Say Nothing, directed by Michael Lennon, and the titular role of Kathleen in Kathleen Is Here by Eva Birthistle.
CIFF Festival Director Maedhbh Mc Cullagh is a multidisciplinary cultural producer, arts programmer, and creative consultant from Ireland. For more than two decades she has been producing and managing artistic programs, presentations, productions, and special events for international festivals and cultural organizations, in Europe and the US, including appointments as the Associate Director of Irish Screen America, Managing Director of the contemporary interdisciplinary Abrons Arts Center, independent freelance producer at The Trailblazery, The Civilians Theater Company, Performance Space NY, The Foundry Theatre, the Alliance of Resident Theatres NY, Program Manager of the international Dublin Fringe Festival and Associate Producer of the award-winning Aurora Nova international program of physical theatre, dance and cross-disciplinary performance at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
The Capital Irish Film Festival is supported by the Government of Ireland Emigrant Support Programme, Culture Ireland, Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland, Embassy of Ireland, Northern Ireland Bureau, Northern Ireland Screen, and the Irish Film Institute’s IFI International Programme supported by Culture Ireland. Solas Nua is supported by the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities.
