Production News: MILO and SHADOW DANCER film in Ireland this month while FLOWERS OF DESIRE greenlit for a July shoot
Two new Irish feature films, the Irish-Dutch co-production MILO and the spy thriller SHADOW DANCER are currently shooting in Ireland this month while the romantic drama FLOWERS OF DESIRE will start shooting on July 4th.
MILO is a coming of age film, directed by brothers Berend and Roel Boorsma who also wrote the script with Heather Imani.
Starring 12 year old Lorcan Bonner in his feature film debut, MILO is the story of a 10 year old boy who grows up in social isolation, because of his ‘sensitive skin' which causes excessive growth of hair all over his face and body. Other cast members include Graham Stewart (Hunger), Jer O'Leary (My Left Foot, The Field, In America), Laura Vasiliu (Il Resto Della Notte), Charlotte Bradley (About Adam) and Dolf de Vries (Black Book).
The film is being produced by David Collins and Martina Niland from Samson Films (Once, Eden, Snap) and San Fu Maltha of Fu Works in the Netherlands and A Private View in Belgium with funding by the Irish Film Board, The Netherlands Film Fund and the Matching Fund. Benelux Film Distributors will release the film in Dutch cinemas early next year.
SHADOW DANCER is directed by Oscar® winner James Marsh (Man on Wire, Project Nim) and stars Clive Owen (Children of Men, Closer), Andrea Riseborough (Brighton Rock, Never Let Me Go), Aidan Gillen (Wake Wood, The Wire) and Gillian Anderson (The X Files, How To Lose Friends and Alienate People). The script was written by Tom Bradby who wrote the book on which the film is based.
Riseborough plays a young mother involved in the Irish Republican movement, whose brother is killed by British forces before she is involved in a bomb attempt. Owen plays an MI5 officer who gives her the choice of informing on her family or spending her life in prison.
The film is produced by Andrew Lowe and Ed Guiney for Element Pictures along with Chris Coen of Unanimous Entertainment while BBC Films' Joe Oppenheimer serves as executive producer. The film received funding from the BBC, the UK Film Council, BFI's Film Fund, the Irish Film Board, Lip Sync and Paramount Pictures.
Wild Bunch will handle international sales while Paramount Pictures will handle Irish and UK distribution.
Meanwhile Subotica's Irish/Dutch co-production FLOWERS OF DESIRE is scheduled to begin shooting on July 4th for seven weeks in various Irish locations.
Written by Peter Birro (We Can Be Heroes!) and Simon Staho (Day and Night) who will also direct, the film tells the story of a former dancer played by Ulrich Thompson (Brothers) who returns to his childhood home to attend his mother's funeral. Here he meets a love from his youth, played by Sonja Righter (Open Hearts) who is trapped in an unhappy marriage with the priest holding his mother's funeral.
The Danish language film is produced by Jonas Frederikssen and co-produced by Subotica's Tristan Orpen Lynch and Aoife O'Sullivan and Anagram's Martin Persson. Bord Scannan na hEireann/the Irish Film Board is on board as a funder and executive producers include Peter Aalbeek Jensen (Dancer in the Dark) and Peter Garde (Dogville) of Danish production company, Zentropa.