Sales agent Syndicado has boarded Irish debut filmmaker Myrid Curtain’s A Want in Her, which had its world premiere in IDFA’s International Competition section earlier this month.
In the documentary, Curtain returns to Ireland from London to search for his troubled mother Nuala. Nuala, once a successful social worker, suffered a mental breakdown after the sudden death of her mother. She shuffles between rehabilitation clinics, psychiatric hospitals, and sometimes the streets.
Her search leads her to a feuding family. “Intimate, surprising, and often darkly funny conversations with her mother and other family members reveal the challenges of loving someone struggling with addiction and insanity,” the press statement said.
The home videos of Caten’s childhood and the video installation documentation of his current work as an artist form a “playful blend” of fictional and documentary elements that “compellingly explores the vicious cycle of care and anger.” “I’m capturing it.”
Atmospheric Irish ballads about vagrant drunkards and dreamlike images of abandoned family homes “harken back to cultural and relational roots.” The film returns to the familiar and universal question of how to be with the people we love without losing ourselves, in a “new and original way”.
Katen says: “My mother was one of 10 children and they were all big, fascinating characters. As an only child, I always wished I had an archive of their past stories. I did.
“When my uncle passed away in 2018, I thought this was the beginning of something, so I thought we should start documenting our history as a family and all the drama I had growing up. was right. The first death had a knock-on effect, because basically every six months from then on, another sibling passed away. Five of my mother’s siblings passed away in those three years. I did.
“During that time, my mother started to feel unwell. I think she was affected by the death of her brother, but she also ended up homeless in that spiral. It was the first time I had to go back to my parents’ house to live.
Furthermore, she added: “The great thing about people, more than their skills and talents, is how they deal with their own obsessions. Only when we look into our own darkness can we embrace the darkness of others. I I’m not much of a public person, but my work is very personal and revealing. I’m fully aware that this specific and extremely extreme story could be universal. I think I trust people.
“Many people’s loved ones have challenges, but it doesn’t have to be addiction. And the anger that comes with that consideration is universal. We believe these are feelings that viewers can share. Masu.”
A Want in Her is produced by Tadhg O’Sullivan and Roisin Geraghty for Irish production company Inland Films, Cat Mansoor for Snowstorm Productions in the UK, and Eline van Wees for Basalt Films in the Netherlands. Manufactured.
The film is supported by Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland, BFI Doc Society Fund, Northern Ireland Screen, Netherlands Film Fund, New Dawn Fund, and was previously supported by Doc Market (Development) – Belfast Film Festival (2019), IDFA Producers Connection (2021), DOK Leipzig Market (2021), IDFA Project Space (2022).
