The Guard to screen at Berlin Film Festival

Irish film The Guard has been selected to screen at the 61st International Berlin Film Festival, it has been announced.

The John Micheal McDonagh-directed flick is a thriller-comedy set on the west coast of Ireland where Sergeant Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) is a small-town cop with a confrontational personality, a subversive sense of humour, a dying mother, a fondness for prostitutes, and absolutely no interest whatsoever in the international cocaine-smuggling ring that has brought FBI agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle) to his door.

Berlinale is one of the most important dates on the international film industry’s calendar and enjoys one of the largest film festival audiences in the world.

It’s a massive coup for a movie which made its world premier at last month’s Sundance Film Festival.

The Guard is an Irish/UK co-production, backed by the Irish Film Board and Section 481 as well as International Financiers. It is produced by Chris Clark and Flora Fernandez Marengo for Reprisal Films and Ed Guiney (Garage) and Andrew Lowe (The Wind that Shakes the Barley) for Element Pictures.

Irish audiences will get an opportunity to see The Guard in cinemas when it goes on theatrical release later this year through Element Pictures Distribution.