EDEN, the award winning Irish film that opened the inaugural Los Angeles Irish Film Festival earlier this month, has been enjoying huge success after Irish actress Eileen Walsh, 31, won the Best Actress award at the Tribeca Film Festival in May.

Since then, the film has been picked up by the L.A.-based distributors Liberation Entertainment for nationwide release in the U.S. on November 7. It's a major rollout for the low budget Irish feature that may well make it this year's Once, last year's low budget Irish film that went on to win an Oscar for Best Original Song.

The growing critical and commercial buzz surrounding Eden and Walsh's remarkable performance as a wronged wife has made the film a contender in the winter lineup of hotly anticipated new films, and naturally the film's Irish director Declan Recks is delighted with the growing attention.

"It was a big deal for us that Eileen won the best actress award at the Tribeca Festival because it has raised the profile of the film," Recks tells the Irish Voice. "So few Irish films find distribution deals here in the U.S. so the chance to reach wider audience is terrific.

"Eden generated amazing interest from distributors here in the U.S. and now we have a release date in seven U.S. cities in November, starting in New York at the Landmark Cinema on November 7."

The feature length adaptation of Eugene O'Brien's critically acclaimed play, Eden is set in a thriving Celtic Tiger era town in Co. Offaly. It tells the story of one week in the crisis filled marriage of Billy and Breda Farrell (played by actors Aidan Kelly and Walsh) as they approach their 10th wedding anniversary.

"People don't know what to expect when they go to see it, but the response we hear most often is that it's not the most typical portrayal of Ireland," says Recks. "It's a more contemporary look at modern Ireland, and it's set in the midlands rather than Dublin - you really don't often see that kind of focus in an Irish film. It's a very small story set in a small town, but it reaches every audience it plays to."

In the role of Breda, the long-suffering wife at the heart of the film, Walsh gives an unforgettable performance.

Already famous for her harrowing turn as Crispina in The Magdalene Sisters - an unmarried mother with the mind of a child living out her days in an Irish convent - Walsh is carving out a niche for herself as both a leading lady and a powerful character actress.

Although now based in Edinburgh, she grew up in Ireland. Eden and The Magdalene Sisters boasted roles to which she could personally relate.

"It was a role that I chased after for quite a while and I'm delighted to have had the chance to play it," says Walsh of Eden.

"It's quiet and interesting and thought provoking - all the things that you long to get the chance to play. For us it's a small story about small insignificant people, but I think their problems are as big to the characters as anyone else's are. I think anyone in a relationship knows what they're going through."

Although Walsh had attended the Tribeca Festival she returned to Ireland before she knew she had even been nominated for an acting award. When RTE, the Irish national broadcasting station, woke her up one morning in May the news that she had won the award was revealed to her live on air.

"I woke up to 18 missed calls on my cell phone. Then RTE called me and put me live on the air saying congratulations," Walsh recalls.

To know I was nominated was just fantastic, but to know I'd won was the icing on the cake. The cards and flowers and the good will from home were just amazing."

Adding to Walsh's unexpected good news was the discovery that she's pregnant. The child is due in December and naturally enough she's taking a short career break.

For such a small budget movie that tells a simple story about a couple who are in crisis and struggling, Eden has consistently won some very influential backers.

Recks has his own theory about why it's proved to be such an audience hit. "It's not a dark and relentless film. There are so many positive moments in it.

"The husband's lost in a lot of ways, but he's trying to work things out, and he's good with his kids, and he dances with his wife, and so the audience starts hoping there will be a happy ending - or the Irish version of a happy ending."