Derry, 1984. A schoolgirl navigates friendship, love and sex against the backdrop of the Troubles in this witty and refreshing coming of age tale.
In 1980s Derry, teenage Goretti (Emer McCourt) and her friends ricochet between high school, discos and their Catholic housing estate, dodging soldiers and parents in pursuit of boys and mischief. When Goretti meets the charming Ciaran at an Irish class, romance blossoms. But a surprise pregnancy—and Ciaran’s abrupt arrest and detainment in a British prison—soon derails this budding relationship, turning Goretti’s dream into a nightmare.
Hush-A-Bye Baby was produced by the Derry Film & Video Workshop, a feminist collective whose films reflected the reality of Northern Irish women’s lives, during a period of state censorship and oppression. Director Margo Harkin and co-writer Stephanie English based the script on interviews and workshops with teenage girls who were dealing with unwanted pregnancies in the face of restrictive abortion laws. The result is a smart, witty and hard-hitting coming of age story, as well as a fascinating time capsule. The film was screened to critical acclaim at festivals across Europe, but unsurprisingly attracted controversy when it was shown on Irish television. Brilliant performances from the young cast, especially McCourt, add an extra dimension, as does the music (and a supporting performance) from the late, great Sinéad O’Connor.
- Director: Margo Harkin
- Cast: Emer McCourt, Cathy Casey, Sinead O'Connor
- Language: English
A Time and a Place—Invisible Women present a season of coming of age films by women filmmakers, inspired by Bradford’s diasporic past
Bradford is famously defined by a rich history of migration. With more than a third of its population aged under 25, it’s also often described as the UK’s youngest city.
For the Year of Culture, archive activist feminist collective Invisible Women, have curated a season of coming of age films which draw inspiration from Bradford’s story of youth and diaspora. A Time and a Place is inspired by the many nationalities who have called this city home over the past century - from the German, Hungarian and Ukrainian communities who arrived in the aftermath of war and persecution, to the Irish and Pakistani migrant workers who played such an important role in our industrial heritage.
Although diverse in perspective and style, these films (all directed and written by women) are fundamentally connected by their empathy for the emotional rollercoaster which comes with navigating early adulthood. Both Mädchen in Uniform (1931) and Hush-A-Bye Baby (1989) set school girl romance in opposition to state oppression, albeit within very different contexts—fascist Germany and Troubles-era Northern Ireland. The relationship between mothers and their children is central to both Kira Muratova’s The Long Farewell (1971), set in Soviet-era Ukraine, and Fawzia Mirza’s The Queen of My Dreams (2023), in which a queer Canadian woman reconnects with her Pakistani heritage. Finally, Ildikó Enyedi’s bewitching My Twentieth Century (1989) presents a literally explosive story of political and personal awakening, set in turn of the century Hungary.
