To All My Darlings
2021 · 12m · Ireland
Directed by Lia Campbell
Genres: drama
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
After another devastating miscarriage, Adaeze — a woman in Dublin's Nigerian-Irish church community — is torn between her religious obligations and revealing the truth of an ill-fated medical diagnosis to her loving husband.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Everyone expects the grief story to crack open into catharsis or revelation, but Campbell lets Adaeze sit in the unbearable space between what her church demands and what her body knows—no redemptive arc, just the weight of silence, which is genuinely unsettling.
A formally composed portrait of a specific spiritual and cultural moment in contemporary Ireland; Campbell's restraint and the careful staging of domestic and liturgical spaces root what could be a sermon into something architecturally sound and durable.
The brilliance lives in how Campbell holds the camera on Adaeze's face during the final church scene—not looking for a reaction, just witnessing the work of choosing silence—and that single refusal to cut away unlocks the entire film's moral complexity.
Reviews
A mature and inspiring film that reveals the multicultural side of contemporary Ireland that rarely appears on screen.
Based on stories from his Nigerian-Irish church community, writer Derek Ugochukwu and director Lia Campbell craft an intimate look at faith, fertility and identity.
Festivals
- BAFTA Student Film Awards 2021
- Virgin Media Dublin International Film Festival 2021, Audience Award for Best Short
- Catalyst International Film Festival 2021, Spirit of the Festival Award
- Royal Television Society Awards (Irish Region) 2021, Best Cinematography