Song of the Sea
All actors and roles (10)
All team (89)
Short description
Ben and Saoirse are siblings who move from their lighthouse home to the city to live with their grandmother. During this transition, Ben discovers that his younger sister is a selkie, a mythical creature capable of transforming into a seal. The pair embarks on a journey through a world of folklore to save magical beings from a spell cast by a witch. Ben must help Saoirse use her unique abilities and song to liberate these spirits and find their way back home.
Directed by Tomm Moore, this 2014 animated fantasy followed his 2009 film The Secret of Kells and preceded Wolfwalkers in 2020. The voice cast includes David Rawle, Brendan Gleeson, Lisa Hannigan, Fionnula Flanagan, Lucy O'Connell, and Jon Kenny. Produced by StudioCanal, Eurimages, Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland, and the MEDIA Programme of the European Union, the film was a joint production involving Ireland, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Luxembourg, and France.
The film had a budget of 5 million USD and earned 4 million USD at the worldwide box office. It is well-received by viewers, holding an 8/10 rating on IMDb from 68,000 votes and an 8/10 on TMDB from 1,623 votes. These audience scores are similar to the rating from film critics, which stands at 8.4/10 based on 95 reviews.
What's left behind the scenes
- In one scene where Sersha and Ben are walking around the city, a close-up shot of the Molly Malone statue can be seen, indicating that the characters are in Dublin, the capital of Ireland.
- In the bus that Ben and Sersha are riding, you can spot Aisling from the animated film "The Secret of Kells" (2009).
- In Irish mythology, the selkies are a seal people, benevolent creatures with brown eyes. Seal skins allow them to live in the sea, but they must periodically surface to take a breath of air. According to some sources, selkies are descendants of people exiled to the sea for their crimes. That is why they are so drawn to land.
- According to director Tomm Moore, certain aspects of his childhood served as the basis for the film. The film is set in October 1987, which Moore remembers as rainy and windy, and some of the characters are modeled after members of Moore's family and pets from his memories.
- The drawings in Ben's book were created by Julian Erlinghauser, son of assistant director Fabian Erlinghauser.
- Sersha ("Saoirse") means "freedom" in Irish. And her mother's name, Brona ("Bronach"), translates from Irish as "sadness".
- Several lines at the very beginning of the film (“Oh child, hasten to the land of lakes and reeds, follow the beautiful fairy – for there is so much sorrow in the world that there is no other way.”) are taken from the poem “The Stolen Child” by Irish poet William Butler Yeats.
- When the ferry with the boy sails away, the car is closer to the shore, but a second later, the car is shown from the other side, yet the ferry could not have turned 180 degrees in a second.
- The pub that Conor visits is called “Ó Mórdha”. It’s an Irish variation of the surname of director Tom Moore.
- A character who looks exactly like director Tomm Moore can be spotted in the background during the scene where Ben and Saoirse pass by the Molly Malone statue.
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