Directed by Len Collin Written by Christian O’Reilly with a cast from The Blue Teapot Theatre Company in Galway,  Sanctuary tells the story of a love that dares not speak its name. Larry (Kieran Coppinger) has Down Syndrome and Sophie (Charlene Kelly) has severe epilepsy.

Family, friends and Irish law endeavour to keep them apart but during a day trip their care worker, Tom (Robert Doherty )breaks the rules and against his better judgement books them an afternoon in a hotel. The afternoon proves eventful as they each experience new freedoms and new challenges.

The script for Len Collin’s ambitious debut ( which started out as a play by Christian O’Reilly commissioned by Petal Pilly at Blue Teapot Theatre Company in Galway) has been tailored to the strengths of each of its cast, most of whom have intellectual disabilities and are performers at the theatre company.

Sanctuary first premiered in the theatre company’s hometown of Galway at the 2016 Galway Film Fleadh where it won the award for Best First Irish Feature and was the most talked about film at its UK premiere during the 2017 Oska Bright Film Festival.
It also won the Dublin Critics Circle Award and the Discovery Award at the Dublin International Film Festival in 2017 and also won Best Director at the Newport Beach Festival that year.

At the core of the film is the right for people with intellectual disabilities to enjoy consensual sexual relationships, a right that had been denied to them until March 2020 when the law in Ireland changed. The film can take some credit for the fact that thankfully it is now no longer illegal for an unmarried couple with ‘intellectual disabilities’ to be intimate.
Director Len Collin has made a video essay on the topic of films featuring people with physical and intellectual disabilities called Altered Thinking  which can be viewed here.