21/07/2010

Irish company Ripple World Pictures is one of the co-producers of Hungarian director Ferenc Török’s Istanbul, shooting for which is underway in the eponymous city. The film will shoot in Istanbul for 13 days followed by a 17-day Budapest stint from August 2.

Török has directed several features, including Moscow Square, about the fall of communism in Hungary, before working for many years for television. Istanbul is his return to the big screen.

The film is about an emotionally hurt woman, played by the Dutch actress Johanna ter Steege (The Vanishing), who leaves her family and ends up in Istanbul. Irish actor Padraic Delaney (The Wind that Shakes the Barley [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ken Loach
interview: Rebecca O’Brien
film profile]) is playing an Irishman living in Budapest. The film will be mainly in Hungarian, but because of the international cast and locations there will be English and Turkish dialogue as well.

Istanbul is a Hungarian, Turkish, Dutch, and Irish co-production with a total budget of €1.4m. The Hungarian Új Budapest Filmstudió and producer László Kántor produce the film, with Phanta Vision (Netherlands, producer Petra Goedings); Ripple World Pictures Ltd. (Ireland, producers Dominic Wright, Jacqueline Kerrin) and Kuzey Film (Turkey, producer Serkan Acar).

Irish composer Lance Hogan (Lapland Odyssey) will score the film and picture grading and sound post-production will take place in Dublin’s EGG Post Production and Ardmore Studios. Irish funding is from the Irish Film Board, Section 481, besides Ripple and participation from the post houses.

The film is to be completed by the end of 2010.