A Peter Mullan film, The Magdalene Sisters, has won another major award at an international film festival.
Set in a Dublin convent between 1964 and 1968, it has been announced as winner of the Audience Award at the Los Angeles Film Festival. It won the main Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival, where it had its world premiere on August 30th, and won the Discovery Award at the Toronto Film Festival in September.
It has been described by The Irish Times film critic Michael Dwyer as "a tough, emotionally loaded and deeply unsettling drama made with classically simple cinematic skill by Peter Mullan, the Scottish actor who won the best actor award at Cannes in 1998 for Ken Loach's film, My Name Is Joe".
Mr Mullan said he was inspired to write and direct The Magdalene Sisters after viewing a Channel 4 documentary, Sex in a Cold Climate, which dealt with the women who were detained in such laundries. He said he was appalled by the hidden suffering of the Magdalene women. The film has been condemned by the Vatican.