‘Father Mother Sister Brother’ Producer Hail Mary Pictures Takes Opera World Drama ‘Maya Butterfly’ to Venice Gap-Financing Market

A young soprano trying to keep her hearing loss a secret ahead of a make-or-break performance is at the center of “Maya Butterfly,” the feature debut of Irish filmmaker Edwina Casey, a creative partner at the fast-rising Dublin-based production outfit Hail Mary Pictures. Casey will be pitching the project during the Venice Gap-Financing Market, which takes place Aug. 29 – 31.

The film follows Maya, the daughter of deaf parents who was miraculously born with the gift of hearing. Choosing music as her life’s vocation, she’s now a young soprano struggling to make her way in the hyper-competitive world of opera. Facing the acute pressure to succeed, her hearing begins to fail her — a fact that she is desperate to hide.

The film is set over the course of a single week, as an avant-garde production of Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly” is visiting Maya’s opera house, bringing with it an opportunity for her to work with world-renowned director and feminist icon Jacqueline Rose — what the young singer believes might be her last chance to prove herself.

As opening night approaches, Maya struggles to conceal her mounting hearing loss, with the director describing the film’s ratcheting tension as “a ticking clock all leading up to one moment” that could make or break the singer’s career.

“Maya Butterfly” is produced by Richard Bolger and Conor Barry for Hail Mary Pictures, which received production financing from Screen Ireland, along with Paul Kennedy of Belfast-based Village Films. Samsa Film is the co-development partner, through Screen Ireland and the Luxembourg Film Fund’s Co-Development Fund for Female and Non-Binary Filmmakers. Pic was developed at the TorinoFilmLab Short Course. Production is set to begin in both Ireland and Northern Ireland next year. 

“Maya Butterfly” draws on Casey’s experiences in the world of opera, where she worked as a stage director before entering the movie industry. “I had a lot of pre-conceived notions about what the world was. I didn’t think it was for me,” she told Variety. “And then I found myself in this world, and it was just fascinating to me. The skills of the people who make it. It was a totally contemporary, fascinating, vibrant world.”

Casey said she was “inspired by the intense pressure those singers put themselves under, and what it takes physically to be a singer at that level,” adding that with “Maya Butterfly,” she wants to tell a story about “a young woman who is ambitious and talented and not to shy away from that.”

Told entirely from a first-person perspective, with the audience “follow[ing] [Maya’s] journey over the course of the film,” according to the director, the film will be an “audiovisual experience” and a “bold immersive spectacle” that owes a debt to Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Conversation,” which Casey called a “key reference” in how it “made sound the hero of the piece.”

She also cited the influence of the Safdie Brothers, whose movies she described as “one continuous ride.” “I think that’s what we’d really like to achieve with this film,” she said.

Casey and producing partner Richard Bolger set up their Dublin-based shingle Hail Mary Pictures in 2018, making a name with films such as 2020’s “Here Are The Young Men,” starring Anya Taylor-Joy, and “The Cellar,” which bowed in SXSW and was picked up by Shudder. 

This has been a breakout year for the young outfit, with the release of Babak Anvari’s “Hallow Road,” starring Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys, and Jim Jarmusch’s “Father Mother Sister Brother,” starring Cate Blanchett, Adam Driver, Vicky Krieps and Charlotte Rampling, set to premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival.

Casey, who worked as second unit director on the film, described the experience of working under Jarmusch as “intimidating, but really amazing.” “Jim’s a total artist. To be in his orbit was an incredible moment,” she said.

With “Father Mother Sister Brother” set for a world premiere on the final night of the Venice Gap-Financing Market, Casey — like the protagonist of “Maya Butterfly” — will be in a race against time on the Lido.

“We’ll have to do our meetings and then frantically get changed,” she said.