The talented young Irish actor Hugh O'Conor looks set to co-star with Harvey Keitel in the title roles of Jack Shepherd And Jonathan Wild, according to Screen International. The £5.5 million film will be scripted and directed by Benjamin Ross, whose first feature, The Young Poisoner's Handbook, featured Hugh O'Conor as the eponymous teenage toxicologist.
Terry George, the Irish writer who made his directing debut on Some Mother's Son, has adapted and will direct the Vietnam war story, A Bright Shining Lie, based on Neil Sheehan's 1988 Pulitzer Prizewinning book. Bill Paxton will play John Paul Vann, the reallife military leader who quickly realised that US strategy in Vietnam made victory impossible and the war was futile. His protests went unheeded in Washington and he died when his helicopter was shot down.
George, who co-wrote In The Name Of The Father, says of Vann: "I know this character from the war in Ireland. He's a fearless warrior people will follow anywhere, a modern-day samurai with a whole different personal code."
After The Sweet Hereafter (see Cinema), Atom Egoyan is planning to direct a film of Felicia's Journey, William Trevor's 1995 novel which won the Whitbread Prize. It tells the story of a poor, unmarried and pregnant young Irish woman who goes to England in search of the man who deserted her. The movie will be produced by Mel Gibson's company, Icon Productions, which made Braveheart.
Egoyan made his debut as an opera director last autumn with Salome for the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto, and that production will be revived in Vancover in November. Next summer Egoyan will direct the world premiere of Gavin Bryars's new opera, Dr Ox's Experiment, at the English National Opera. And he is writing the libretto for another opera, Elsewhereness, with music by Rodney Sherman, which will open in Toronto in the spring.
Moonstone International is a new organisation working in consultation with the Sundance Institute in the US to contribute to the training of Irish, Scottish and other European feature film writers and directors. Moonstone will be holding its first Filmmakers' Lab in Connemara from November 20th to December 7th, and feature-length projects are sought which are sufficiently developed for selected scenes to be shot by the film-maker under the guidance of leading international directors.
This will be followed by a Screen Lab, from December 8th to 13th, for writers with feature screenplays that would benefit from a week's intensive work with leading writers on a one-to-one basis. For further information contact Moonstone, 67 George Street, Edinburgh EH2 2JG. Tel: (0044131) 220-2080.
Tom Collins's film Bogwoman, featuring Rachael Dowling as a young Donegal woman in Derry during the early days of the civil rights movement, is screening this week at the San Sebastian Film Festival. It will have its British premiere at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival at the ICA in London next month, following which it will be shown at the Cork Film Festival. The movie also features Peter Mullan, Sean McGinley, Maria McDermottroe and Noelle Brown.
The Derry interactive multimedia arts centre, the Nerve Centre, will run the Foyle Film Festival Comedy Weekend from October 30th to November 2nd. New movies on the programme include Nothing To Lose, with Tim Robbins and Martin Laurence, Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy and Mark Staunton's Irish comedy, Separation Anxiety. The weekend will also feature comedy classics from Woody Allen, Ealing Studios and the Monty Python team, along with live music, stand-up comedy and workshops for children.
Busy Robert Carlyle, who never seems to stop working, has started work on a new feature, Plunkett And Macleane, in which he and his Trainspotting co-star, Jonny Lee Miller, play the eponymous 18th-century highwaymen. Jake Scott directs this Working Title production which also features Liv Tyler, Ken Stott and Michael Gambon.
Working Title also has Eliz- abeth I in production with Cate Blanchett - who stars with Ralph Fiennes in the imminent Oscar And Lucinda - playing the queen as a young woman. She heads an eclectic cast that includes Joseph Fiennes (brother of Ralph), Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush, Richard Attenenborough and Christopher Eccleston.
