16/12/2005

Dragnet with Scottish actors Robert Carlyle and Gary Lewis, and Becoming Jane by the director of Kinky Boots Julian Jarrold are the two high profile European co-productions that are going to be filmed in Ireland in 2006 with support from the Irish Film Board according to James Morris, Chair of the IFB who made the announcement with the Irish Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism John O’Donoghue.

Dragnet will be the directorial debut of UK writer/director Steve Hudson who has been living in Germany since 1995. The drama which will shoot for 5 weeks on location in Ireland on a trawler off the coast in Co.Cork and Co.Wicklow, will tell the story of Scottish fishermen smuggling immigrants to Britain. The film is majority co-produced by the German Rosebud Films (55%) with Makar Productions from the UK (25%) and Samson Films in Ireland (20%) and co-financing from the German Federal Film Board, NRW Germany, Scottish Screen, BBC Films, the Irish Film Board, Eurimages and Scion UK.

Becoming Jane based on a script by Kevin Hood and Sarah Williams, will star Anne Hathaway (Brokeback Mountain), Maggie Smith and Julie Walters. The €12.5m film which will shoot on location in the Dublin/Wicklow region will tell the true story of Jane Austen’s romantic affair with a young Irishman and the emerging motivation which inspired her to become a great novelist. Octagon Films (Inside I'm Dancing [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) will co-produce the second feature film by Julian Jarrold with financing from the Irish Film Board, the UK Film Council, the Bank of Ireland and Scion UK.