06/03/2019 - The Irish film body has confirmed it is granting development, production and distribution support to over 60 audiovisual projects

Director Fabio Mollo, whose Shadows has received production support

Screen Ireland, formerly known as the Irish Film Board, has officially announced the recipients of its slate of funding for the last quarter of 2018, in the categories of development, production and distribution. 

The production grant of the biggest magnitude (€250,000) was for Fabio Mollo’s Shadows, produced by Feline Films, and written by the director himself and Damiano Brue. This Italian-Irish co-production revolves around Andros and Alma, two teenagers who grow up in a remote house in the middle of the woods, which their father sees as the only way to protect them from the evil that lies beyond the forest. A production grant of €180,000 was offered to Pink Kong Studios’ Urban Tails, an animated series about urban animals, directed by Aoife Doyle. Other recipients of this quarter’s production grants are Tadhg O’Sullivan’s To the Moon [+see also:
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interview: Tadhg O'Sullivan
film profile] (€125,000, produced by Inland Films) and Alan Moloney’s Windmill Lane: A Feature Documentary (€100,000, produced by Animo TV Productions). In addition, ten provisional offers of commitment were made to Conor McMahon’s Let the Wrong One In [+see also:
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film profile], Michael Kinirons’ The Sparrow, David Freyne’s Dating Amber [+see also:
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interview: Fionn O'Shea
film profile] (working title: Beards), Terry Loane’s The Last Rifleman, Jamie Teehan’s Kiva Can Do – Series 2, Veronica Lassenius’ Royals Next Door, Trevor Courtney’s Fantasy Ireland, Sean O’Cualain’s The Father of the Cyborgs, Aideen Kane, Maeve O’Boyle and Lucy Kennedy’s The 8th [+see also:
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film profile], and Sarah Share’s A Short History of Decay. 

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The development funding section’s largest grant has been bestowed upon Element Pictures (€50,000), which is developing Oscar-nominated director Lenny Abrahamson’s new project, entitled A Man’s World, and co-written by Jon Raymond and the helmer himself. The movie will tell the story of Emile Griffith, a boxer whose 1962 fight against Benny Paret resulted in his opponent’s death. The film body is also backing Lee Cronin’s new feature, written in tandem with Stephen Shields and entitled Box of Bones (€27,000, a Blade Rights production). Cronin’s picture focuses on a couple rebuilding their fractured relationship while inadvertently unearthing some terrifying and dark secrets. 

This quarter, four Treasure Entertainment fiction productions are benefiting from development funding – namely, John Butler’s Kids These Days (€30,000), Eva Birthistle’s Little Pictures (€20,500), Philip McMahon’s Alice in Funderland (€26,000) and Aoife Kelleher’s Just Sixteen (€25,500). Other notable supported documentary projects are Kathryn Ferguson’s Nothing Compares [+see also:
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film profile] (€15,000, produced by Ard Mhacha Productions), focusing on singer Sinead O’Connor’s career between the years 1987 and 1992, Ross Whitaker’s Beating the Bookies (€15,000), Maurice Sweeney’s The Convention (€15,000), Paul Duane’s Jordantown (€15,000) and Emer Reynolds’ A Low And Quiet Sea (€35,000).

Finally, three projects received distribution support – namely, Paddy Breathnach’s Rosie [+see also:
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film profile] (€17,520, distributed by Element Pictures), Nuala O’Connor’s Keepers of the Flame (€15,000, distributed by Eclipse Pictures) and Morgan Bushe’s The Belly of the Whale [+see also:
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film profile] (€12,500, distributed by Wildcard Distribution).