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| Festival Year |
Festival Section |
| 2013 |
21st Century Silents |
| Film Title |
THE GIRL WITH THE MECHANICAL MAIDEN |
| Alternative Title 1 |
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| Alternative Title 2 |
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| Alternative Title 3 |
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| Country |
Ireland |
| Release Date |
2012 |
| Production Co. |
The Arts Council of Ireland / Schomhairle Ealaion, Irish Film Board / Bord Scannán na hÉireann, Restoration Films |
| Director |
Andrew Legge |
| Format |
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Speed (fps) |
| DCP |
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| Footage |
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Time |
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15' |
| Archive Source |
Andrew Legge. |
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| Print Notes |
(da/from 35mm), col., sd.
Senza didascalie / No intertitles.
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| Cast |
| Dominic West (inventore/Inventor), Serena Brabazon (moglie dell’inventore, robot balia/Inventor’s wife, Mechanical Maiden), Ingrid Craigie (governante/housekeeper), Sophie Scully (ragazza/Girl), Chris Nugent (automa importuno/molesting automaton), Eoin Lynch (Spoons), Ned Dennehy (ostetrico/obstetrician), Maria Papas (automa che spolvera/dusting automaton), Emer O’Carroll (automa inserviente/maid automaton), Ali Lyons & Emma McCann (marinaretto/Sailor Boy), Lara Holloway, Sky McKay, Gabrielle Mather (bebè/Baby), Charlotte Mather (bimbetta/toddler), Michael Burke (il bruto/The Brute), Aoibhé Whelehan (Pigtails) |
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| Other Credits |
| scen: Andrew Legge; prod: Ciara Whelan; f./ph: Eleanor Bowman; mont./ed: Frank Reid, Eoin McGuirk; scg./des: Olwen Kelleghan; cost: Cathy Young, Niamh Buckley; hair & make-up: Edwina Kelly; mus: Liam Bates, esegue/performed by The RTÉ Concert Orchestra; spec. eff: Rob Clarke; visual effects: Declan Dowling; Mechanical Maiden des: Ger Clancy; animatronic breast des: Jack Phelan; Sailor Boy des: Jack Phelan, Erin Hermosa; sd. des., mixer: Aza Hand; rec: Mark McGrath |
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| Program Notes |
This new film by Andrew Legge – whose outstanding short The Unusual Inventions of Henry Cavendish was shown at the 2005 Giornate – is a silent film by accident. His proposal for a commission from the Arts Council of Ireland (An Chomhairle Ealaíon) was a film for which the entire sound – with 20-piece orchestra and three Foley artists – would be performed live as the film is screened. The score was written and conducted by Liam Bates and the Foley designed by Caoimhe Doyle, who had worked in a comparable fashion with Guy Madden on Brand Upon the Brain. In 2011 The Girl with the Mechanical Maiden was performed live at the National Concert Hall in Dublin and at Lincoln Center in New York. “Because I was shooting the movie for a live show I couldn’t have dialogue – hence the ‘silent’ film.”
Legge’s own synopsis is terse: “An inventor comes up with a radical solution to child rearing after the death of his wife.” That solution is a robot wet-nurse. Following a catastrophe, the growing child and her nurse are left alone in their ruined mansion. An attempt to reconcile with the callous human world is predictably doomed…
Like Legge’s previous work the film boasts a visual richness and confidence startling in a modestly budgeted short (it was shot by Eleanor Bowman, who was camera operator on The Unusual Adventures of Henry Cavendish), along with Legge’s elusive, deadpan humour in the face of cinema tradition. The film would not be the same without the shadows of Frances Hodgson Burnett and all the filmic visions of The Secret Garden, of Buñuel, Keaton, Metropolis, Whale and Frankenstein, Tim Burton – but Andrew Legge still keeps his private distance. And resolutely eschews CGI.
The film received the Tiernan McBride Award for Best Short Drama at the 2012 Galway Film Fleadh and was nominated for Best Short Film in the 2013 Irish Film and Television Awards and Best Narrative Short at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival. – David Robinson
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