As reported by Screen Daily, there are some interesting projects on the horizon of the Irish film industry that have been helped along by receiving funding from the Irish Film Board.
In the first quarter of the board’s funding decisions, Lenny Abrahamson’s The Little Stranger received production funding of €350,000. The wartime ghost story is set in a country house in rural Warwickshire.
English novelist and screenwriter Lucinda Coxon (The Danish Girl) will be adapting it from Sarah Waters’ gothic novel and Element Pictures is co-producing. Domhnall Gleeson, who also worked with Abrahamson on his film Frank, has been attached to the project since 2015.
Other projects of interest include Trade, Damo & Ivor: The Movie and A Girl From Moghadishu, which were all awarded €500,000. Trade will be directed by Hong Khaou (best-known for Lilting) and written by Mark O’Halloran (Adam & Paul, Viva) while A Girl From Moghadishu comes from from writer-director Mary McGuckian (The Price Of Desire). Damo & Ivor will be based on the Republic of Telly characters who also had their own spin-off TV series.
Float Like A Butterfly, written and directed by Carmel Winters, whose last project was the 2010 film Snap, received the highest production funding grant of €600,000.
Darren and Colin Thornton’s (who were behind last year’s hit film A Date For Mad Mary) Here Comes the Night was the highest recipient of script development funding of €16,000. In project development funding, Duck, to be directed by Paddy Breathnach (Viva) from a script by Mark O’Halloran, was in receipt of €50,000. Owned, directed by Phyllida Lloyd (Mamma Mia!) was one of the projects in receipt of project development funding.
