BALLYMENA: Ecos Centre

Friday 9th February, 2024

7:00pm

Event information

Experience this superb locally made bittersweet comedy with a delicious serving of Kilkeel caught fish and chips from the award winning Secret Garden catering team. You’ll feel like you’re sitting by the Ballywalter seaside.

For dietary requirements and any other questions please email: braidfilm@gmail.com

Supported by Collective, an initiative from Film Hub NI (BFI Film Audience Network) to connect people to great films.

Film synopsis:

A poignant and life affirming look at how our lives can be changed by the most unexpected of connections.

Film trailer: https://youtu.be/E0q_S84bK1M?si=8icIh9XaVoNE6Itl

Film review by Cara McWilliams (People’s Choice Movies):

Written by Stacey Gregg, Ballywalter is set in Ballywalter in Ireland and follows Eileen. A university dropout, Eileen makes ends meet by working as an unlicenced taxi driver using her ex-boyfriend’s car. One day Eileen picks up Shane. Holed up in town following the breakdown of his marriage, Shane has enrolled on a comedy course and needs transport in order to attend the sessions. When Shane tries to pre-book Eileen, she tells him no but soon she finds herself picking him up regularly anyway and slowly a connection is made between the two.

Ballywalter gives the audience two characters that they can immediately relate to. Both Eileen and Shane are flawed. They have made mistakes, taken wrong turns and are vulnerable, and in being all those things and more means that they are imminently more believable and thus imminently more empathetic. The audience roots for Eileen and Shane, even though they are far from perfect, because any one of us could be any one of them.

Seana Kerslake and Patrick Kielty, as Eileen and Shane respectively, both put in great performances. Kerslake’s Eileen is sardonic and guarded and Kielty’s Shane is wary and polite but as they each let their barriers come down, they find that the impact on their lives is profound. Much of this profundity comes from the heartfelt and dedicated performances. Puwanarajah, as an actor himself, obviously knows how to get the best from his cast.

Ballywalter is also elevated by its setting. The film works as both a love letter and anti-love letter to Ballywalter. There is beauty but isolation, there are family ties but little opportunity, there is safety but no adventure. Ballywalter is a character within itself but as becomes clear as the film progresses, perhaps it is not so much about the seclusion of the place itself but the seclusion and self-isolation that the characters have placed on themselves. Both Eileen and Shane see Ballywalter as a place to hide away – from other people and from life.

However, whilst Eileen and Shane do find each other, Ballywalter is not necessarily a film about wanting to be found. Rather it is about how life finds people for us. It is about unlikely friendships and connections, and perhaps most importantly it is about healing and moving forward. Life throws all sorts of curveballs at us and sometimes knocks us to our knees. However what is more important is how we get back up and Ballywalter is a film about two people who help each other back up again.

A thoughtful and grounded film, Ballywalter shows real promise for Puwanarajah as a director.

Venue information

BALLYMENA: Ecos Centre

0	Kernohans Lane Ballymena BT43 7QA
>	www.filmhubni.org/events/coming-to-america-30th-anniversary-showing/
!	02825013200
`	Follow signs on the M2 to Ballymena an Coleraine, then turn off and head to Ecos. Parking at front of building