Bua (Victory)

Category:

Short Film, Drama, F-Rated, Children on Film

Directed by:

Sonya Gildea

Produced by:

Kirsten Sheridan, Blindside Films 

Year:

2007

Duration:

14 mins

Language:

Irish with English subtitles

A twelve-year-old girl gallops her horse fearlessly across the open countryside, an unspoken and visceral language emerging between them as the horse begins to see what she sees, and feel what she feels. 

A young girl (Jemma Harris) sits on her majestic white horse driving him faster and faster as she tries to ride beyond her pain. She is hurt and confused by a disturbing encounter with her grandfather (Mick Lally) when they were alone in a farmyard feeding calves and the moment began to take on sinister, sexual undertones. 

Director Sonya Gildea is masterful in her understated depiction of the girl’s dawning realisation of betrayal and in her capture of the power of the magnificent animal which mirrors the power of the young girl’s pain and fury.

Bua (Victory) was produced by Kirsten Sheridan, whose film The Case of Majella McGinty is also part of F-Rated: Short Films by Irish Women. To view more from the collection click here.

This film is also part of Children on Film. To see more from the collection, click here.

IFCO: PG