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PRODUCTION Ireland / Paraguay

Eliza Lynch nearing completion

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- Feature documentary to be privately screened for Paraguayan President

Director Alan Gilsenan (Timbuktu) is in the final stages of post on feature documentary Eliza Lynch – Queen Of Paraguay. The film depicts the love story between the beautiful, imperious Eliza, born in Charleville, County Cork in 1833, and the Paraguayan President Francisco Solano Lopez. She was the most famous woman in all of South America in the 19th century; and, as distorted by her enemies, the most infamous.

Based on the biography The Lives of Eliza Lynch by Michael Lillis and Ronan Fanning, the film is produced by Stuart Switzer of Ireland’s Coco Television, and supported by the Irish Film Board, the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland Sound & Vision Fund, Irish Tax Incentive Section 481, RTE, Abbeyfield Group and Sudameris Bank and Hibernia Misiones of Paraguay and has had help and logistical resources of the Paraguayan Government.

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Irish actress Maria Doyle Kennedy (photo) plays the older Lynch, with Paraguayan model and Olympic athlete Leryn Franco playing the younger version. The film was shot on location in Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil, France, England and Ireland. It will be screened at Asuncion, Paraguay on April 10 for Paraguayan President Federico Franco.

Gilsenan said,  “I was really gripped by the epic potency of this extraordinary tale. But I’m also slightly daunted by the responsibility – for, while Eliza is proudly Irish by birth, she is truly Paraguayan in her heart and remains very close to the hearts of the people of that wonderful country, a country that I have come to know and love during the making of this film.”

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