With the opening of DIFF, all eyes move to Ireland, where Screen International selected its first Rising Stars cohort two years ago. And applications are still open - until March 14 - for the second iteration, to be announced this year. Screen reports on what has happened to the first Ireland Rising Stars line-up.
Actors
Dónal Finn will soon return in the third season of Sony Pictures Television / Amazon Prime series Wheel Of Time, having joined the cast in season two. He will also take the role of James Moriarty in Young Sherlock, a Inspirational Entertainment series also for Amazon Prime. Off-screen, Finn played the lead role of Orpheus in the award-winning musical Hadestown in London’s West End.
Thaddea Graham has recently finished filming After the Hunt for director Luca Guadagnino, as well as as Noah Baumbach’s upcoming untitled feature which also stars George Clooney. Graham will next shoot Margot’s Got Money Troubles, a new A24-produced series for Apple TV+ which also stars Nicole Kidman and Elle Fanning. She can currently be seen as detective Una Houlihan in season two of Apple TV+ series Bad Sisters.
Éanna Hardwicke is currently filming feature No Ordinary Heist alongside Eddie Marsan for director Colin McIvor. He recently wrapped Saipan, in which he plays the Republic of Ireland football captain Roy Keane opposite Steve Coogan as Mick McCarthy, its manager. Other credits include Mark Gattis’ A Ghost Story For Christmas: Woman Of Stone on the BBC, Nick Hamm period drama William Tell and TV miniseries A Very Royal Scandal.
Ella Lily Hyland has recently filmed a major role in BBC Agatha Christie drama Towards Zero, and has also shot Hulu period drama A Thousand Blows. She can currently be seen in Netflix thriller Black Doves, which also stars Keira Knightley. On stage, Ella took the title role in Graniaat Dublin’s The Abbey Theatre.
Patrick Martins has joined the cast of Small Town Big Story, a six-part comedy series for Sky written and directed by Chris O’Dowd. He is currently appearing in Emma at The Abbey Theatre, where he also took the lead in Audrey & Sorrow, and in 2024 made his London stage debut in Wedding Band at the Lyric Hammersmith.
Filmmakers
Fran The Man, the second feature from producer Collie McCarthy was shot in early 2024; a sports mockumentary starring Ardal O’Hanlan and Eddie Marsan, it is due to release in Ireland in the spring. McCathy’s Forty Foot Productions is bolstering its film and TV slate, including the debut feature from Steve Kenny and a conspiracy thriller series with Game Of Thronesproducer Frank Dueller. The company has also launched an incubator for emerging Irish genre writers in partnership with BMAN Entertainment and Bankside Films.
Writer/director Katie McNeice is about to shoot The Quiet Ocean for Focus Shot/Screen Ireland, from a screenplay by Barry Smith about a futuristic Irish motel where people go to end their lives. She has also written and directed short film Words Home Heart (Focal Baile Croi), due for release in summer 2025, and completed the National Talent Academy Multi-Camera Training Course.
Director Mia Mullarkey is currently in prep to direct two episodes of Acorn Origin’s Hidden Assets, and is developing sci fi feature Lucid as well as two TV series with Sleeper Films and Pipedream Productions. Mullarkey’s RTE Storyland film Wrapped won several awards in 2024 including Gold for Best TV Pilot at Cannes Lions Young Director Awards
Riognach Ni Ghrioghair currently has several features in development as writer/director, including satirical thriller The Hive with Screen Ireland and Pipedream, feminist body horror Touch Me, also with Pipedream and cannibal folk horror Meat with Fantastic Films, which will participated in Rotterdam’s Cinemart and Berlinale Co-Production Market.
Writer/director Derek Ugochukwu is developing several features including thriller Consequences with Samson Films, drama Fall Like Babylon and horrors Sweet Monkey Nuts(working title) and Tradition. He has also completed short films Pediment and Nay Day, and participated in the National Talent Academy’s shadow directing programme on TV series Kin, The Gone and The Rainmaker.
What’s Next: Coming Soon From Ireland
Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon, a Dublin-shot drama about American lyricist Lorenz Hart starring Ethan Hawke, Andrew Scott and The Substance’s Margaret Qualley, has just premiered in Berlin Competition. So too has Brendan Canty’s Cork-shot feature debut Cristy, about two estranged brothers attempting to reconcile, in the Generation14Plus strand.
Dublin also provided locations for a segment of Jim Jarmusch’s upcoming drama Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, headed by Cate Blanchett, and John Carney’s Power Ballad, a music-driven story about a rock star and a wedding singer starring Paul Rudd and Jack Reynor.
Filming in both Dublin and Wicklow is 500 Miles, a story of two brothers who run away to find their estranged grandfather starring Bill Nighy and Maisie Williams, and golf comedy Finnegan’s Foursome from director Edward Burns.
Wicklow also recently hosted the second series of Netflix hit show Wednesday, which relocated to Ireland from Romania, and chiller Hallow Road from Under The Shadow director Babak Anvari which stars Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys.
4 Kids Walk Into A Bank, Frankie Shaw’s comic book adaptation starring Liam Neeson and Jim Sturgess, recently filmed in Limerick, while Rory Kinnear-starring drama Learn To Breathe Under Water completed its filming in Galway.
Other projects shooting in Ireland include Re-Creation, about the murder of French filmmaker Sophie Toscan du Plantier in Cork in 1996, directed by Jim Sheridan and David Merriman and starring Vicky Krieps and Aidan Gillan; and the adaptation of Niall Williams’ novel Four Letters Of Love starring Helena Bonham-Carter, Pierce Brosnan and Gabriel Byrne, which is due to premiere at the Dublin Film Festival.
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