‘Because it has female sexuality’ – Director of new Irish thriller reveals why she thinks her movie was given an 18 cert

Is Ireland still behind the times when it comes to female sexuality in film?

In the week leading up to the release of her debut feature film Kissing Candice, we had the opportunity to sit down with writer/director Aoife McCardle about the movie, as well as everything women working in the Irish film industry, the difficulty of the casting process, and the greatest Irish movie of all time. You can listen to the full conversation right here: During the conversation, the topic of the movie's 18 cert also came up. A movie getting an 18 cert will automatically massively reduce the potential audience, and at the time of writing, Kissing Candice is currently the only movie with an 18 cert in Irish cinemas. According to the Irish Film Classification Office, the movie received an 18 cert because of "Scenes of strong drugs abuse. Strong violence and language. Strong sex references." JOE reached out to IFCO for further clarification on the specifics of what pushed the movie into the 18 certificate, but have yet to receive a response. Meanwhile, the British Board of Film Classification gave the movie a 15 cert, due to "very strong language, strong threat, drug misuse". So we had to ask, why does the director think her movie was slapped with a far more restrictive cert in the movie's home country? "I think I always set out to make a youth film, and I think youth films should be challenging, that is what being young is about. Challenging the world and experimenting, and I felt that film should reflect that. "But I was very surprised by the 18s cert, I didn't think I was making this really shocking film, and I can't help think it's because there is female sexuality in the film. "Because there isn't really much violence or much drug taking, in comparison to other films [that did get an 18s cert]. "And [the violence and drugs] were mentioned in the UK cert, but the sexuality wasn't, and it was given a 15s cert in the UK, so... yeah, you can't help wondering if that's the reason." Kissing Candice is in Irish cinemas right now. The movie was reviewed in the most recent episode of The Big Reviewski (which you can listen to here), and you can watch the trailer below: Clip via Scannain