Gerard Barrett: the IFTA's Rising Star

"I grew up in a house with three brothers who were all ten years older than me so I was subjected to Reservoir Dogs on VCR when I was four, and spent my youth with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Twin Peaks and all these other things I shouldn’t have been watching!”

A love of film may always have been in Gerard Barrett’s blood but, as he discovered growing up on the outskirts of Listowel, dreams of Hollywood are often seen as a tad outlandish.
“Growing up in the countryside when you’re trying to do something different, it can be hard. The countryside’s a very simple place; people usually have safe jobs and do safe things. So when the youngest son comes along and says he wants to be a filmmaker, it can be a bit of a culture shock. Telling a family of farmers and plumbers and electricians that you want to be a filmmaker is kind of a daunting thing. So I had to persuade them.”
To do so, Gerard Barrett kept the subject matter of his first feature close to home. Pilgrim Hill is an intimate and elegiac tale of an Irish bachelor farmer facing oppressive loneliness and the pressure to fulfil his responsibilities at the expense of his happiness, fulfilment or freedom. It’s often devastating in its portrayal of the isolated lifestyle, and Barrett says he drew on the experiences of those close to him.
“My uncle is a bachelor farmer and I remember seeing him looking at the floor when I was very young and wondering what was going on inside his head, and how he must feel to be alone and minding my grandmother and what must all that responsibility feel like. I started thinking about it more when I was in college, and there were about ten similar people around me at home in a vicinity of about five miles, all bachelor farmers ranging from about thirty-five to ninety. I thought it was very interesting, and a story that hadn’t been told and needed to be. I wanted to explore the reasons and circumstances, and the loneliness and how that feels.”
However, despite its Irish setting, the film has been emotionally received at film festivals across the world, and Barrett was warmed by how the universal theme was innately understood by all.
“A man in Asia said to me ‘That’s my uncle, he drives a rickshaw in the countryside.’ A Pakistani man saw it and said the same thing about his uncle who is a goat farmer. I think it’s transferable everywhere. Because it’s just about loneliness, which everyone has experienced, and the fear that it’ll be with us our whole lives.”
Though strangers appreciate the honesty with which Barrett portrayed this previously unexplored story, for some the truth was a little too close for comfort.
“My uncle won’t watch it because he knows it’s based on him and it’s just too close to the bone,” Barrett admits. “I know bachelor farmers who have walked out and told me ‘Listen Gerard, it’s great but I just can’t watch it, I don’t want to face that stuff.’ A woman I know took her brother who is a bachelor farmer to it and they didn’t talk for a week after it. But honesty makes people uncomfortable.”
It also makes people take notice. Pilgrim Hill has garnered great reviews internationally, and Barrett won the Rising Star Award at this year’s IFTAs, beating out hot favourite Jack Reynor. But to Barrett, the award was hugely important to his family, as it assured them that his ambition wasn’t just a pipe dream. “It was very important to my parents. Winning the Rising Star really did persuade them that I could have a career with this thing! People need to see your success visually.”
Luckily, they’ll have plenty of opportunities to do just that. Barrett has been signed with Martin Scorsese’s agent at prestigious talent agency WME, and has several projects in the works, including a project for Film4 and an animated adult comedy series that he describes as a blend of The IT Crowd and South Park that’s premièring in September. He also spent his time in the Telluride Film Festival hanging out with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars.
“Freaking around with them in party central!” he jokes. “No, we screened before Argo so Ben Affleck and George Clooney were there, but I was just like the pale Irish freak in the corner!”

Pilgrim Hill is in cinemas from April 12