Logline

When care worker Mary vanishes without a trace, Detective Foley arrives at the Yellow Tree Day Service, and investigations begin. As reports from the eyewitnesses become more and more confounding, we are asked to explore the reliability of truth, the strangeness of fiction, and the people we choose to believe.

Synopsis

When care worker Mary vanishes without a trace, the attendees of the Yellow Tree Day Service become key witnesses, as the last people to have seen her. When Detective Garda Foley arrives and investigations begin, fragmented accounts and contradictions begin to suggest that someone knows more than they’re letting on. As the eyewitnesses’ versions of events become increasingly fantastical, Foley realises that in order to solve the disappearance, he will have to determine not if the witnesses are lying, but why. Are they protecting Mary? Protecting themselves? Or is the truth something far more complicated? Mary is Missing is a form-flipping thriller exploring the reliability of truth, the strangeness of fiction, and the people we choose to believe.

Director’s Statement

Mary Is Missing for me is more than just a film – it’s the culmination of years of collaboration, trust, and artistic ambition shared between myself and a remarkable ensemble of Irish learning disabled artists. A psychological thriller set in an Irish day service for people with intellectual disabilities, Mary Is Missing presents a world where truth becomes elusive and stories splinter and spiral. It is equal parts provocative and thrilling, and yet funny and fantastical. At its heart, it’s a film about whose version of events we choose to believe, and why.

But behind the camera, Mary Is Missing offers something more radical in its ambition. With a cast of 17 – 13 of whom are artists with intellectual disabilities – this film was conceived, developed, and made in a way that upends traditional hierarchies of authorship. It began in a workshop-led writers’ room hosted by Run of the Mill, our multi award-winning arts organisation that exists to platform the talents of learning disabled artists. Over twelve weeks in the Spring of 2023, our ensemble worked alongside professional actors and a creative team to facilitate the development of characters, exploration of themes, and the sharing of story ideas – drawing from their lived experience, unique worldviews, and personal storytelling interests, from crime and soap operas to speculative fiction.

These bold, singular ideas challenged myself and co-writer Caitríona Daly to craft a screenplay that honoured the ensemble’s creative ownership. The resulting film is unlike anything you’ve ever seen: a genre piece that playfully flips form and perspective, centering disabled characters not as sidekicks or symbols, but as complex protagonists, unreliable narrators, and authors of their own truth.

As a director, my background lies in socially engaged theatre and inclusive filmmaking. My debut short film Headspace (winner of the Oscar-qualifying Grand Prix at Cork International Film Festival and a candidate for the European Film Awards) also centred an ensemble of actors with Down Syndrome. Mary Is Missing builds on over a decade of deep collaborative practice with many of the same performers. That embedded working relationship is, I believe, what underpins and enables the richness and authenticity of the performances you’ll see on screen.

At Run of the Mill, we believe there should be no ceiling to the artistic ambition of our collaborators. This film is a statement of that belief. The artists involved are credited not just as performers but as storytellers – their fingerprints are on every frame. Mary Is Missing is a proof-of-concept: that if we embed access and inclusion into every level of production – from story development to post-production – we don’t just make space. We make better, and bolder work.

This film opens a door into a world rarely represented on screen; but it does so on its own terms: thrilling, sharp, strange, and unapologetically unique. I’m incredibly proud to share it.

Aisling Byrne

Director and co-writer, Mary Is Missing