Carmel Winters’ Float Like a Butterfly Wins Audience Award at Cork Film Festival
Posted: 19th November 2018
Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland congratulates the team behind new Irish feature film, Float Like a Butterfly, which won the Audience Award at the 2018 Cork Film Festival. The title was the festival's Opening Gala, where it also received its European Premiere.
Speaking about the accolade, director Carmel Winters said: "Winning the audience prize at the oldest and largest festival in Ireland is the greatest gift I could wish for. So many of us bared heart and soul to make this film. Thank you, thank you, thank you Cork for championing the right of all of us to be our truest and best selves."
Filmed on location in West Cork, Float Like a Butterfly is a powerful and timely story of a girl’s fight for freedom and belonging. In a gender-reversal of classic film Billy Elliot, 15-year-old Frances (played by up-and-coming Irish actress Hazel Doupe) has to fight for the right to fight back. Raised in roadside camps in rural Ireland, Frances wants to champion her people inside the boxing ring and out, like her idol Muhammad Ali, but society is determined to break her spirit and destroy her way of life.
The film received its World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September and went on to win the prestigious International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) Prize for the Discovery programme.
Float Like a Butterfly stars Hazel Doupe, Dara Devaney, Johnny Collins, Aidan O'Hare, Lalor Roddy, Hilda Fay and is produced by Martina Niland (Sing Street) for Port Pictures and David Collins (A Dark Song) for Samson Films.
The film was supported by Screen Ireland.