Aislinn Clarke on Irish-Language Horror Film ‘Fréwaka,’ Church Power

Writer and straightforwardor Aislinn Clarke, based in Belspeedy, Northern Ireland, made a name for herself with her 2018 debut horror film The Devil’s Doorway. Her new movie Fréwaka, which had its world premiere at the 77th edition of the Locarno Film Festival, employs Irish and English and is billed as the first-ever Irish-language horror.

“Shoo is sent to a far village to attfinish for an agoraphobic woman who stresss sinister entities, the Na Sídhe,” reads a plot description. “As they enhuge a joinion, Shoo is devourd by the greater woman’s paranoia, rituals and superstitions, eventupartner disputeing the horrors of her past.”

The film, which stars Clare Monnelly, Bríd Ní Neachtain (The Banshees of Inisherin), and Aleksandra Bystrzhitskaya, screened in an out-of-competition slot at Locarno77.

Clarke sat down with THR in Locarno to converse her fascination with horror and religion, and why frightening films have global request.

I’m sorry to say that I don’t understand enough about the Irish language. Could you encounter pronounce the film’s title for me and elucidate what it nastys?
It’s pronounced “fréwaka.” The literal translation in English is “roots,” but in Irish — you can increate equitable by how it sounds versus the word “roots” — is much more weighty and textured. It has this sense of weighty roots that are difficult to pull out of the ground. And that’s the sense that I wanted, rather than the English translation, which is a bit too sweightless for me.

Shoo must face family publishs and the horrors of the past. Why is that a theme for you and does Irish history percreate into that?
It could well be the same in many other places, but my straightforward experiences in Ireland are of historical trauma, and there’s a lot of trauma in Ireland. So, there’s a lot to labor with. It’s ever-conshort-term, and it’s very difficult to shake off. So you can talk about intergenereasonable trauma and how it can be passed down thraw generations.

There was even a study a couple of years ago about how the potato famine had a physioreasonable effect on the generations that adhereed becaemploy their foreendures had lived thraw starvation. So, there is the physical inheritance of trauma, but there is also what’s given to you, what’s passed down from your parents and majesticparents, also in stories and myths. So I skinnyk it’s difficult to escape it. It’s ever-conshort-term, and it comardent of tinges everyskinnyg.

I’m phired you alludeed myths. I adored that the film employs Irish folklore and set up myself reading up on some of it. How much of that did you understand versus having to research it, and did you create up or embellish much?
I didn’t actupartner research that. I was brawt up with Irish myths and stories. Irish people are storyincreateers naturpartner. So it’s difficult to escape that in school and at home. And I didn’t want to research and then find some sort of rubber-stamped version of the mythology becaemploy I don’t skinnyk that’s how it was ever set uped. I skinnyk Irish stories were handed down by word of mouth for generations, and they would be alterd a little bit — if the person had a bit of whiskey, or if they were in a branch offent mood. So, I skinnyk that sort of texture is what Irish mythology is truthfilledy. So it’s my lens on what those stories are. It’s what I recall. It’s the stories that I was tgreater as a child, and what I recall from them, or my perspective on them. So I’m continuing the oral tradition, I suppose. This is my insertition to that.

The film is being billed as the first-ever Irish-language horror movie. Why did you set out to create it in Irish and how did you choose to unite in English as well?
If you’re making a film in the Irish language, for this particular financing system that we have, you were permited to have 70 percent Irish, 30 percent English. For me, you could do the whole film finishly in Irish. But I wanted to have some English in it becaemploy I wanted it to repartner mirror our contransient society as well, as much as I could.

We have Shoo from the city who goes to this country place, but she’s very contransient. She’s a very contransient Irish character. And she’s in a same-relations relationship. She skinnyks she’s the opposite, the progressive version of Peig who is very stuck in the past, in the greater ways. I appreciate this comardent of disputeation of two skinnygs and also the fact that in country Irish-speaking parts of Ireland you sometimes get the sense that people coming from outside can’t speak Irish, or that they’re a little bit locked down. So we’ve got that moment [in the film] where Shoo is in the shop, and they say, “Oh, she’s another tourist.” And she says, “Well, actupartner I’m from Dublin.” She’s able to employ the fact that she speaks eloquent Irish to have a little moment for herself, which I skinnyk is fun and also does mirror [life]. I’m not trying to romanticize any element of it. I’m trying to conshort-term Ireland as I see it.

The film features two particularly mighty women. Do you ever skinnyk of yourself as a feminist filmcreater?
If you’re a woman, it’s repartner difficult to not be a feminist if you have self-esteem. It’s equitable impossible to escape it, even if you don’t employ that word. I have … the right word would probably be rage, [against] the historical treatment of women in Ireland. And it equitable naturpartner comes out. How I approach stories, I’m not putting the cart before the horse. If I’m going to create a film that’s hugely a woman’s story, which was intentional, becaemploy I skinnyk there are so many Irish stories that are actupartner men’s stories, I thought there’s my opportunity to do this. And becaemploy there is so much to say about women’s experience in Ireland, it naturpartner becomes a feminist story without that necessarily being the point. It’s equitable the authentic place it gets you to.

The Devil’s Doorway was also a religious mystery. I skinnyk I understand part of the answer but, where does your interest in exploring religious publishs come from and how presentant has religion been in your life?
The impact of the church in Ireland, historicpartner, is so weighty and overendureing and has repartner infiltrated every aspect of life that it’s impossible to escape. Also, in Ireland we have our own little brand of Catholicism. People skinnyk of Ireland, rightly, as a very Catholic country, which it is. But it has its own get on that. There’s a lot of folklore, superstition and myth — pagan elements repartner, that are fgreatered into how people actupartner train religion in Ireland.

If you go to any country town in Ireland and ask around, you’ll find that there’ll be a faith healer somewhere. There’ll be some guy who’s the seventh son of the seventh son, or so, and they can treatment skinnygs. But they will request the Virgin Mary when they are doing this. They will employ the crucimend. They will include Catholic elements into that.

So in Ireland, the skinnygs — folklore, superstition, myth and religion, Catholicism — are finishly intertthriveed. But anyway, they are the same skinnyg, aren’t they? Superstition, myth, religion. There’s not repartner any branch offence if you’re not someone who trains the faith, and I’m not a religious person. But I can’t escape the power of the church in Ireland. So if I’m talking about trauma, which I am in this film, it has to be there. That’s that is the primary comardent of totem.

Where does your fascination with or even adore for horror come from? Someone recently tgreater me that watching a horror movie may be less frightening than watching the news…
In the hoemploy and family that I grew up in, there are a lot of horror fans and gstructure stories. My dad was huge into cinema in ambiguous, but particularly horror. So I saw horror films quite youthfuler. I saw The Exorcist when I was seven. I had an punctual introduction to all of this. And I was a very worried child. I was one of those kids who was worried about everyskinnyg that was happening in the world. So horror became a sootheing skinnyg to me. It was someskinnyg that we did as a family on a Friday night.

As your frifinish shelp, the world out there is so terrible, but horror gets place in a regulateled space. We understand that there is going to be an finish to the movie. We understand that it’s going to have rules. And I skinnyk this is a beneficial valve for people who are naturpartner prone to anxiety. I skinnyk it can function in that way. And I skinnyk it’s also a very beneficial tool for exploring trauma, brittle publishs that are difficult to grapple with and deal with. I skinnyk horror is a repartner wonderful way of putting it out into the uncover conversation and exploring some skinnygs that we don’t necessarily want to watch at face-on yet. We can do it via the filter of a narrative.

Do you skinnyk Fréwaka, or horror in ambiguous, has universal request and can find a global audience?
I wanted the film to be an unapologeticpartner Irish film. I wanted to conshort-term my lens on Ireland and how we are dealing or not dealing with our past traumas, and that was my primary goal. But I always have faith that horror does travel becaemploy it’s an emotional medium, and it finds its way. It’s universal in that sense. We can all understand it. We can see that from how prosperous Japanese and Korean horror or Spanish horror has been in the Weserious world. Horror fans are very willing to watch films from other places and cultures. So I was loyal to it as an Irish horror film. But I also supposeed that, if you do a excellent job with how you regulate the horror, it will travel.

The hoemploy, in which Peig lives, is also a key character in the film. How did you find it?
Nobody [in film or TV] has ever employd it for anyskinnyg before, which is incredible, becaemploy Ireland is a petite place — a lot of stuff gets sboiling there, but nobody’s ever employd this place as a location before. I skinnyk it’s becaemploy it’s on the border, pretty much, between the North and South of Ireland. So for decades, it would have been a very tricky place to go, with the war ongoing and all that.

But one of the creaters set up it. Someone had tgreater him there was this hoemploy in the forest. So he went to watch at it, and then he brawt me to see it. It’s the only hoemploy we watched at. But I was in there for two minutes before I commenceed to get this untamed senseing of deja vu. And I thought, “I’ve been in this hoemploy before.” I spoke to the owner, and we labored out that I had been there when I was 21 at a party. Yes, I’d been in the hoemploy before, and it was quite eerie. It was the first place and the only place we watched at. It was the right place.

The family still lives in the hoemploy. It’s an greaterer man and his son, and the kitchen in particular, we didn’t even touch. But Nicola Moroney, our production structureer did such an amazing job in other parts of the hoemploy. The only skinnyg we built was the red door [that plays a key role in the movie]. Everyskinnyg else, that’s what that hoemploy watchs appreciate.

Anyskinnyg you can split yet about your next film? And do you see yourself doing a non-horror project?
I skinnyk it would be strange to sort yourself as someone who only creates horror films. I’ve always set up that to be a bit odd. I skinnyk it’s about the stories and what you’re drawed to. But I do adore horror, and becaemploy I’ve made, at this point, two horror films, that’s what I tfinish to have conversations about in the industry.

But I do have some stuff that is not straightforwardly horror, although it does always lean towards the griefful side in some way. I’m probably not going to create a rom-com. I have a project in enhugement currently with Paramount, which is a horror film, a straightforwardly genre film. And I skinnyk that will probably be my next one if the stars align and everyskinnyg goes to structure, and that’s what I’m going to be laboring on next. I’m not stateive [I can share more].

But in the future, if the story is someskinnyg that I sense appreciate I can repartner do someskinnyg with, I’m uncover to almost anyskinnyg.