Northern Ireland Screen will provide a cash boost to a host of indigenous film projects from home-grown talent, through the NIS Fund. New Irish titles including ‘Red Mist’, ‘Chatakwa Falls’ and Cherry Bomb’ have been greenlit for the coming months.
Supported by Invest NI and following the success and investment brought into Northern Ireland from last year’s big budget Hollywood production ‘City of Ember’, NIS will support several low-budget films from newly launched production company Generator Entertainment. Set up by producers Simon Bosanquet (Ripley’s Game, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers) and Mark Huffam (Mickybo & Me, Mamma Mia), Generator plans to undertake five film projects, four of which would shoot in Northern Ireland in the first half of this year.
‘Red Mist’, directed by Paddy Breathnach (Shrooms, Man About Dog) and written by Northern Irish writer Spencer Wright, is the first film on the slate and will receive £247,737 in funding. Set in an American teaching hospital, filming began on location in Northern Ireland on February 4ththe film, with Belfast-based Michael Kelly co-producing.
Next in line for a cash boost is ‘Chatakwa Falls’, written by Richard Crawford, which will begin filming at the end of April. The project will receive £192,623.
Northern Ireland Screen will also give £250,000 to Green Park Films’ ‘Cherry Bomb’. Directed by Lisa Barros d’Sa and Glen Leyburn and written by Armagh man Daragh Caville (Middletown), the film follows a group of teenagers who embark on a wild weekend of drink, drugs, shop-lifting and stealing cars. ‘Cherry Bomb’ will shoot on location in Northern Ireland and is produced by Belfast’s Michael Casey (Freeze Frame; Middletown; My Boy Jack).
Further films are planned to shoot in Northern Ireland in 2008 and 2009, with a collection of projects being put together in partnership with Framestore Features and Limelight and being sold by The Little Film Company out of LA, headed by Robbie Little, executive producer of the Oscar-winning film ‘Tsotsi’.
“Our latest round of funding to Generator and Green Park reflects our continued commitment to building a sustainable production sector here,” said Richard Williams, chief executive of Northern Ireland Screen.
