Production activity is gearing up around Ireland with Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board (IFB) supported films Brooklyn beginning filming in Ireland this week in Co. Wexford and The Losbster filming on location in Kerry.
Irish stars Saoirse Ronan (The Grand Budapest Hotel and Oscar nominee for Atonement), Domhnall Gleeson (About Time, Anna Karenina), star in Brooklyn along with Emory Cohen (The Place Beyond The Pines), Jim Broadbent (Oscar winner for Iris) and Julie Walters (Oscar nominee for Billy Elliot and Educating Rita).
John Crowley (Intermission, Boy A) directs this adaptation of Colm Toibin’s New York Times Bestseller Brooklyn from a script by Nick Hornby. Set in the early 1950’s, Brooklyn is the story of a young woman, Eilis (Saoirse Ronan) who moves from small town Ireland to Brooklyn, NY where, unlike home, she has the opportunity for work and for a future – and love, in the shape of Italian-American Tony (Emory Cohen). When a family tragedy brings her back to Ireland, she finds herself absorbed into her old community, but now with eligible Jim (Domhnall Gleeson) courting her. As she repeatedly postpones her return to America, Eilis finds herself confronting a terrible dilemma – a heart-breaking choice between two men and two countries.
Brooklyn will shoot for three weeks in Enniscorthy, Wexford and Dublin, Ireland, before moving in mid-April to Montreal, Canada for a further four weeks. The film is produced by Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey (Quartet, Oscarnominees for An Education), Parallel Films in Ireland and Item 7 in Canada.
Meanwhile, John C. Reilly, Ashley Jensen, Michael Smiley and Jessica Barden join Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Ben Whishaw, Léa Seydoux, Olivia Colman, Ariane Labed and Angeliki Papoulia on the set of The Losbster filming on location in Co. Kerry, Ireland.
The Losbster directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, is filming over seven weeks on location in Ireland. The film is a love story set in the near future where single people, according to the rules of The City, are arrested and transferred to The Hotel. There they are obliged to find a matching mate in 45 days. If they fail, they are transformed into an animal of their choosing and released into The Woods. A desperate Man escapes from The Hotel to The Woods where The Loners live and falls in love, although it is against their rules.