Song for a Raggy Boy

Colour, 35 mm
Ireland, United Kingdom, Denmark, Spain, 2002, 93 min
Section: Official selection

Synopsis

Ireland, 1939. A sadistic headmaster named Brother John has absolute control over the boys at a church reform school. He soon comes into conflict with a more humane teacher, William Franklin, who arrives at the school having been marked by his experience fighting alongside the Communists in the Spanish Civil War. The conflict between the decent man and the demonic embodiment of a perverse system is gradually worsened for the fact that the boys grow fond of the new teacher. As a result, Brother John only steps up his harsh inquisitional domination over them. He focuses above all on Franklin’s most gifted student Liam... This emotively intense and highly suggestive film is drawn from actual events. It realistically depicts the operation of such repressive institutions and their secret “educational” methods, portraying them with shocking openness. With exceptional urgency, the movie tells of the impossibility of surviving under conditions of raw humiliation and oppression. Its message is underlined by the fact that the harsh system of church reform schools in Ireland lasted until 1984.

About the director

Aisling Walsh graduated from Britain’s National Film and Television School. Among others, she contributed to the television series Trial & Retribution (1997). Filmography: Joyriders (1989), a drama of a woman who runs away from her kids and a violent husband, Forgive and Forget (2000), a TV drama about a gay man in love with his hetero friend, Sinners (2002), a TV drama about single mothers in the sixties, employing the same theme as Peter Mullan´s The Magdalene Sisters, which was shot contemporaneously.