NANO NAGLE, the Irish woman who founded the Presentation Order of nuns in 1777, is to be the subject of a feature film documentary. It will be produced by Dublin-based Julie le Brocquy, who co-produced the outspoken contemporary Afghan drama, Osama, which won the Golden Globe award for best foreign-language film in 2004.
Born in Co Cork in 1718, Ms Nagle came from a landed family who sent her and her sister Anne to France for an education, which was forbidden in Ireland under the Penal Laws. Returning home, she clandestinely set up a number of hedge schools to educate the needy.
In 1775 she entered a novitiate and became a nun, Sr Mary of St John of God. She went on to found a convent and the order of the Presentation Sisters. She died in 1784.
"There is now a campaign to have her beatified, so this film will be timely," Ms le Brocquy told The Irish Timesin Cannes this week. "Nano Nagle exemplifies the ideal, often recognised but seldom fulfilled, that one person can make a change.
"In this film we aspire to show how Nano, a young Catholic woman in 18th-century Ireland, ignored all the obstacles [placed] in her way by her gender and religion to provide hope to a people destitute of all aspirations, reduced to extreme poverty and entirely disenfranchised. Her courage is an inspiration in a world that still has so many needs."
Ms le Brocquy is now actively seeking out a director for the documentary, to be titled Nano Nagle: The Lady with the Lantern, which she will produce. "I want to get a director who will take a creative approach," she said.
Her Irish-registered company, leBrocquy Fraser, is also producing Burma Soldier, a documentary to be made this year when Myo Myint, a veteran of the Burmese army and former political prisoner, leaves his refugee camp in Thailand. The film will follow him as he travels to the US to reunite with his siblings.
"While travelling with Myo, we will tell his life story, one of courage against overwhelming odds, while interweaving an insight into life in modern Burma," Ms le Brocquy said.