The Sea Within

Song of the Sea (Irish: Amhrán na Mara) is a 2014 animated fantasy film directed by Tomm Moore and written by Will Collins, based on an original story by Moore. An international co-production between Ireland, Belgium, Denmark, France and Luxembourg, the film follows a 15-year-old Irish boy named Ben (David Rawle) who discovers that his 6-year-old mute sister Saoirse is a selkie, who has to free faerie creatures from the Celtic goddess Macha whose owls eventually kidnap her, prompting Ben to rescue her. Like other Cartoon Saloon films, the film combines traditional hand-drawn and computer-generated art, presented in a naïfstyle.This follows the style set in The Secret of Kells, with it mainly appearing with a flat or 2-dimensional aspect, but also incorporating some 3-dimensional image modelling. Aptly, the imagery of the animation is composed in the form of water-colours, especially in the backgrounds and in the narrative flashback scenes. The film began production soon after the release of The Secret of Kells and premiered at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival on 6 September in the "TIFF Kids" programme. The film was acclaimed by critics and had a limited release in certain countries. It won the Satellite Award for Best Animated or Mixed Media Feature and European Film Award for Best Animated Feature Film, as well as nominations for Best Animated Feature at the 87th Academy Awards and 42nd Annie Awards. The film is the second installment of Moore's "Irish Folklore Trilogy", following his previous film The Secret of Kells (2009) and later the film Wolfwalkers (2020). The Irish-language version was produced by Macalla with funding from TG4 and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, with selected cinemas in Ireland screening it from 10 July 2015. Brendan Gleeson and Fionnula Flanagan reprised their respective roles in this version.