Galway actress acclaimed for role on both sides of the camera

Irish Screen America has named Connemara filmmaker and actress, Linda Bhreathnach, the winner of this year’s prestigious ‘Rising Star Award’ for her film Adulting.

Adulting – which was written and co-directed by and also stars Linda – was selected to screen at the Irish Screen America Festival and the San Francisco Irish Film Festival, and received its premiere last summer at the Galway Film Fleadh.

Eibh Collins, Manager of Irish Screen America said: “After carefully watching everything we screen for the festival, we’ve selected six Irish talents we are proud to showcase in our programme – talents we want to support, thank and promote for their hard work in their field. Linda was selected for the clearly vital roles she had in making Adulting the fantastic short that it is.”

Linda – who is originally from Rosmuc – previously starred in Ros na Rún and Corp Agus Anam. Adulting was very well received following its premiere at the Galway Film Fleadh over the summer and has since been featured in The Irish Times, Film Ireland and RTÉ Arena.

The short film touches on the pressures of social media and other aspects of modern life on young women today, brilliantly merging the traditional Irish life with technology and various issues that arise during young adulthood. Writing the film was a great experience for Linda, who says seeing the dialogue she had written come to life was one of the best things about the production.

“I wanted us all to sound authentic and I hope that is what comes across. In many ways, it was really hard to motivate myself to co-create Adulting. When we began shooting, I had just come back from volunteering in a refugee camp in Calais the day before and I was just feeling pretty exhausted to be honest and so performing just seemed like such a strange thing to do.

“It was a lot of hard work, organising the logistics and performing and writing and co-directing it. It was stressful, but I felt ultimately that it was a story that I wanted to tell and I’m happy with what we created in the end.”

The hard work paid off, though, and Linda is thrilled to have been selected as one of six Irish talents to be showcased in the States.

“People often say they feel humbled when they win awards and I have to say that this is how I feel. I feel humbled and I feel honoured and I’m so amazed at how receptive people have been to my writing, and I suppose it sort of makes me feel better about this annoying compulsion I have to write and create stories in my head.

“Nothing is guaranteed in the arts, but I have this drive in me to create, so I feel really relieved that the first time I shared one of these stories properly, people don’t hate it. In fact, they really seem to like it. And that feels good.”

Adulting was shot in Galway City and Connemara and combines the old traditions such as working on the bog with new traditions such as Facebook and Tinder, while following the story of a quirky young woman just trying to find her place in the world.

“In many ways the film was charmed; it always felt like a miracle to me when we would get the crew and the actors onto set and we’d complete a scene. When we were going back on everything in the edit, it was hard to believe we’d actually shot it all; it’s sort of surreal to go from conceiving something, to writing it, to co-creating it to viewing it on the big screen at an amazing Festival Such as the Oscar qualifying Galway Film Fleadh and for it to be Screened as part of Irish Screen America,” said Linda.

“In many ways it doesn’t seem real to me. It’s remarkable really. I’m so grateful to everyone who believed in our little film from the start, and I’m grateful to every single person who contributed to making the script a reality.”

■ For information about the film, visit the Facebook page.