Blue Road – The Edna O’Brien Story gets a release date

SPECIAL PRICE. The Irish novelist Edna O’Brien pictured in 1970.

Modern Films has announced the UK theatrical release of Blue Road—The Edna O’Brien Story. The film will open in UK cinemas on 18 April 2025, following its World Premiere at the 2024 Toronto Film Festival and US Premiere at DOC NYC 2024.

BLUE ROAD – THE EDNA O’BRIEN STORY is a candid portrait of one of the world’s greatest and most charismatic writers, Irish author Edna O’Brien. In 1960, her debut novel, The Country Girls, caused uproar, resulting in the ‘sexually frank’ novel to be burned and banned in her native Ireland. Despite this, O’Brien still became a literary sensation, regularly writing for The New Yorker, delivering provocative interviews, and authoring screenplays.

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Based in London for much of her life, her home was the backdrop to countless love affairs, star-studded parties, and the making and losses of fortune, all while she raised her two young children, Carlo and Sasha.

In July 2024, Edna passed away. BLUE ROAD – THE EDNA O’BRIEN STORY provides a final testimony from her, aged 93, as she reflects upon her extraordinary life for filmmaker Sinéad O’Shea’s camera.

Granting the director access to her diaries — read aloud by the Oscar nominated Irish actress Jessie Buckley — and with additional perspectives offered from Gabriel Byrne, Walter Mosley and an array of renowned writers, her sons and closest friends, BLUE ROAD – THE EDNA O’BRIEN STORY is a candid, dark and enchanting look at a literary icon.

BLUE ROAD – THE EDNA O’BRIEN STORY is an SOS Production in co-production with Tara Films, with backing from Fís Eireann/Screen Ireland, Sky and the UK Global Screen Fund.
It is directed by Sinéad O’Shea, produced by Claire McCabe, Eleanor Emptage and Sinéad O’Shea with Katie Holly and Barbara Broccoli serving as Exec Producers.