Aidan Quinn joins sister for new film

Actor Aidan Quinn has returned to Ireland to join forces with his sister to film a coming-of-age movie set in 1970s Dublin.

Director Marian Quinn, who previously worked with her older brother on the 1998 film This Is My Father, has written 32A from the point of view of a 13-year-old girl from the capital.

Newcomer Ailish McCarthy, from Dublin’s Ranelagh, has been cast in the central role of the film, which also stars Orla Brady from A Love Divided, Jared Harris, Sophie Jo Wasson, Orla Long and Riona Smith.

Producer Tommy Weir said: “In a way it is a universal story. It is a coming-of-age story, but it is unusual in that it is told from a girl’s point of view. There are lots of films telling the boy’s story and this is one of the rare films that tells it from the girl’s point of view.

“In a way there is a simplicity and naivety to the 1970s that is gone and this is an attempt to capture that.”

Quinn, whose last film shot in Ireland, was the acclaimed hit Song For A Raggy Boy, said: “It is nice to come back and work with your sister on her project.”

The actor said he felt the film was realistic to a young teenager’s life and suspected many of the incidents may have been based on things that happened to his sister during her time in Dublin’s Raheny.

Quinn, who plays the father in the film, said: “I think it is about a girl’s first period, first boyfriend, first getting drunk, a coming-of-age kind of thing that a lot of people can relate to.”

Ailish said this was the first film she had starred in that was destined for release in the cinema, and added: “It is a good experience working with Aidan and Orla.”

The 14-year-old said she believed her friends at school would identify with her character in the film.

The €1.5m budget film, which has been shooting in Donaghmede in Dublin and Sligo, features more than 20 cast members, including two of Marian’s sons and a number of other young actors.

Weir said: “It is amazing how confident and capable they are given their age, but they are great.”

The film, which has received funding from several sources including the Irish Film Board, BCI and RTE, is due to be released in cinemas in autumn 2007.

“We are hoping to premiere in Berlin, then back for the Galway Film Fleadh, then an autumn release in the cinemas here and then out on RTE,” the producer said.

The film, which Marian has been working on for several years, won the Irish Film Institute’s Tiernan MacBride Screenwriting Award in 2002.