In 2014, she directed A Poet in New York, which explores how Welsh poet Dylan Thomas died in New York at the age of 39. The film was made to mark the centenary of Thomas' birth on 27 October 1914.
Aisling Walsh (born 1968) is an Irish Screenwriter and Director. Her work has screened at festivals around the world and she has won several accolades, including a BAFTA Award for Room at the Top (2012) and a [[Canadian Screen Award and an Irish Academy Award for Maudie (2016). She is known for her "unflinching honest portrayals of a Catholic Irish society".
In 1985, Walsh wrote and directed her first short film, titled Hostage. She followed this up with her first feature film, Joyriders (1989), before transitioning into television work throughout the 1990s. Her television work in this period includes episodes of The Bill (1991–1994), Doctor Finlay (1993), Roughnecks (1995), and Trial & Retribution (1997–2002). She also directed several television films, including the BBC One film Sinners.
In 2003, Walsh wrote and directed her second feature film Song for a Raggy Boy]], which won multiple awards at international film festivals, including the Best Film award at the Copenhagen International Film Festival. Her third feature film, The Daisy Chain, a horror-thriller film, was released in 2008. Throughout the 2000s and early 2010s, Walsh also continued to work in television, directing series and television films, such as the BAFTA TV Award-nominated Fingersmith (2005), The Fifth Woman, a feature-length episode of the BBC series Wallander starring Kenneth Branagh (2010), and Room at the Top (2012), the latter of which earned her a BAFTA TV Award in 2013 for Best Mini-Series.
Her fourth feature film, the biographical film Maudie (2016), about Canadian folk Artist Maud Lewis, premiered at the Telluride Film Festival. Walsh stated that, as someone who has studied painting herself, she was drawn to the simplicity and beauty in Lewis's work. Upon release, the film received positive reviews from critics. A critic writing for The Japan Times called the film "an unabashedly intimate portrait of a remarkable woman". The film was also a New York Times Critic's Pick; in her review, Manohla Dargis criticized the film's tone and score, but commended the performances and direction.
For her work on Maudie, Walsh won a Canadian Screen Award for Best Director; the film won a total of seven awards at the 6th annual ceremony in 2018. She also won the award for Best Director at the 15th annual Irish Film and Television Awards in 2018.
