BFI Distribution and Break Out Pictures partner to release Four Mothers in the UK and Ireland

BFI Distribution and Break Out Pictures have partnered in the acquisition of Irish comedy drama Four Mothers, winner of the Audience Award for Best Feature at the 2024 BFI London Film Festival. Break Out Pictures will release the film in Ireland and BFI Distribution will handle it in the UK. The release date for cinemas in both territories is set for 4 April 2025.

Irish director and writer Darren Thornton (A Date for Mad Mary) and co-writer, brother Colin Thornton, adapted Gianni Di Gregorio’s 2008 LFF winner Mid-August Lunch into a funny and charming tale of one Irish son juggling four very different mothers, influenced by personal experiences with their own mother, Trish. 

The film stars James McArdle (Mary Queen of Scots, Mare of Easttown, Andor), Fionnula Flanagan (The Guard, Waking Ned Devine), Dearbhla Molloy (Wild Mountain Thyme, Uncle Vanya), Paddy Glynn (her feature film debut) and Stella McCusker (Five Minutes of Heaven, You, Me and Marley). Niamh Cusack makes a cameo appearance as a medium and Rory O’Neill, aka Panti Bliss, one of Ireland’s best known drag performers, plays a therapist.

Edward, a novelist saddled with caring for his elderly mother, finally finds himself on the brink of literary success. With pressure to go on a US book tour mounting, the last thing Edward needs is his friends jetting off to Spain for an impromptu Pride holiday, leaving their mothers on his doorstep! Over a chaotic weekend, he has to juggle his burgeoning career with the care of four eccentric, combative, and wildly different ladies.

Four Mothers is directed by Darren Thornton, written by Darren Thornton and Colin Thornton (who is also Associate Producer) and produced by Eric Abraham, Jack Sidey and Martina Niland. It is a Port Pictures and Portobello Films & Television production, made with the support of Fís Éireann / Screen Ireland and The Common Humanity Arts Trust, in association with mk2 Films, Coimisiún na Meán and RTÉ.

The film was acquired from the producers by Break Out Pictures’ Robert McCann Finn/Nell Roddy and the BFI’s Laura Dos Santos. 

“Four Mothers strikes the perfect balance between wit and laughter, entertainment and emotion,” said Dos Santos, “and has true cross-generational appeal. Winning the LFF Audience Award for Best Feature certainly bodes well for next year’s general release, which we are so thrilled to handle in partnership with Break Out Pictures.”

Finn and Roddy added: “We’re huge admirers of Darren’s work and following such a wonderful reaction from LFF, we are delighted in this joint release with the BFI to be bringing Four Mothers to cinemas across Ireland and the UK from 4 April. It’s an incredibly heart-warming, funny and emotionally charged film and we can’t wait for audiences to see it.”

BFI Distribution’s next theatrical release is the Cannes Grand Prix winner All We Imagine as Light on 29 November. Recent releases include Starve Acre, Sky Peals and Àma Gloria.