Small Things Like These Starring Cillian Murphy Set to Open Berlinale

The 74th Berlin International Film Festival will open on February 15, 2024 with the world premiere of Small Things Like These, an Irish-Belgian production. Directed by Tim Mielants from a screenplay by Enda Walsh, the international cast includes Cillian Murphy, Eileen Walsh, Michelle Fairley and Emily Watson. Small Things Like These will screen in Competition.

The film is based on the book by the award-winning Irish writer Claire Keegan (who also wrote “Foster”, adapted into the Academy Award nominated Irish language film An Cailín Ciúin (The Quiet Girl)). 

Small Things Like These reunites director Mielants (WIL, De Patrick, The Responder) with Murphy, who previously worked together on series three of Peaky Blinders. Walsh, a longtime collaborator of Murphy’s, wrote the script. Small Things Like These takes place over Christmas in 1985, when devoted father and coal merchant Bill Furlong (Murphy) discovers startling secrets kept by the convent in his town, along with some shocking truths of his own.

The film reveals truths about Ireland's Magdalen laundries – horrific asylums run by Roman Catholic institutions from the 1820s until 1996, ostensibly to reform “fallen young women.”

The film was produced by Murphy and Alan Moloney through their company Big Things Films along with Catherine Magee. Matt Damon and Drew Vinton also produce alongside executive producers Ben Affleck, Kevin Halloran, and Michael Joe for Artists Equity with FilmNation Entertainment handling international sales. The film was financed by Artists Equity and Screen Ireland/Fís Éireann and was co-produced in Belgium by Wilder Content.

“With Small Things Like These, Tim Mielants tells the story of a man of few words, with wide open eyes, as clear as the skies of Ireland. In The Quiet Girl we already had sense of Claire Keegan’s skill in portraying small, apparently simple characters and making them unforgettable; here her delicate, rich and yet down-to-earth writing finds a great interpreter in Cillian Murphy. We are confident that this story that allies the kindness to be directed to the more fragile, and the willpower to stand up against injustice, will resonate with everyone. We are looking forward to launching this ‘quiet’ yet quite exceptional film at the start of Zeitgeist Irland 24, a year-long celebration of Irish culture in Germany,” says the Berlinale’s Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian.