Video: IFTA Rising Star Award winner Gerard Barrett’s feature film Pilgrim Hill trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLT9o5uG3rc

Kerry-born IFTA Rising Star director Gerard Barrett brings a tale of woe from a rural farmer in Ireland to cinemas with Pilgrim Hill

By Genna Patterson

Pilgrim Hill is a new Irish melancholy drama from Gerard Barrett, a Kerry born director. Barrett wrote, directed and edited Pilgrim Hill, his first feature film that charts the troubles of a middle-aged farmer in rural Ireland.

Starring Joe Mullins, Muiris Crowley, Corina Gough and Kevin McCormack, Pilgrim Hill sees Jimmy Walsh caring for his elderly father while trying to run his dilapidated farm. Life is already tough for Jimmy (Mullins), and then things take a turn for the worse. Pilgrim Hill examines the isolated life of rural life in Ireland, where farms and hope deteriorate as the days go on.

Barrett, 24, won the IFTA Rising Star Award this year and the Bingham Ray New Talent Award at the Galway Film Fleadh last year for Pilgrim Hill.

The film was made with a budget of €4500, and was selected as the ‘Great Expectation’ of the Telluride Film Festival, an honour bestowed on critically acclaimed movie makers such as Alexander Payne (The Descendents, Sideways, About Schmidt). Pilgrim Hill was also selected for the Cork and London Film Festivals.

Pilgrim Hill is released in cinemas on Friday April 12.