Ireland, 1981, Cáit, a young girl withdrawn and neglected by her family, is sent to live with distant relatives during the summer. But in this seemingly secretless home, where she finds fulfillment and affection, Cáit discovers a painful truth.

The Quiet Girl is the highest-grossing Irish-language film of all time. It was nominated for the Oscar for best foreign film in 2023.
Feminine sources of inspiration
Colm Bairéad’s favorite filmmakers are all women: Kelly Reichardt, Andrea Arnold, Céline Sciamma and Lynne Ramsay. The latter’s short film Gasman (1998), which also has a child as its central character, served as a visual reference for The Quiet Girl.
Adaptation
The Quiet Girl is the Irish-language adaptation of the story Foster, written by Claire Keegan and published in 2010. It appeared in France under the title Les Trois Lumières. Writer and director Colm Bairéad first read Foster in the summer of 2018, when he was looking for material for a film. The book was quoted in an article in The Irish Times which mentioned the ten best Irish works written by women.