Feature production in Ireland is heading for an unexpected upturn. It comes after a hesitant start to the year prompted by the threatened Hollywood strikes and exacerbated by industry anxiety that the UK's foot and mouth disease outbreak might spread to Ireland.

Spyglass Entertainment's epic fantasy Reign Of Fire with Matthew McConaughy and Christian Bale has been a constant presence in Ardmore Studios and on location in the Wicklow mountains since the beginning of the year and shooting is scheduled to run to late June. Granada's Bloody Sunday with Christopher Eccleston, Ciaran McMenamin and James Nesbitt, was shot during the Spring, and Jolyon Symonds Productions' The Escapist for Sky Pictures, directed by Gillies McKinnon with Jonny Lee Miller, Andy Serkis and Gary Lewis, wrapped in mid-May after an eight week shoot.

The fourth feature attracted to Ireland this year by the combination of tax incentives and currency differences is Bobbie's Girl, a Babyhead Productions and World 2000 gay-themed family drama for Showtime. Directed by Jeremy Kagan and with a cast including Rachel Ward and Bernadette Peters. Bobbie's Girl wrapped last week and caps the year's initial round of productions.

The first indigenous production of 2001 kick-started the second phase of the production year on May 22nd. Grand Pictures' The Mapmaker is a drama set and being filmed over five weeks on the border with Northern Ireland. The film is directed by Johnny Gogan and stars Susan Lynch and Brian O'Byrne.

Next off the starting line should be Hells Kitchen's East Of Harlem, written and directed by Jim Sheridan and loosely based on his own family's experience as immigrants in America in the early 1980s. Harlem is set for an initial two-week shoot in the US followed by a further five weeks in Ireland. Hells Kitchen has not yet confirmed casting.

Parallel Films is setting up The Letters with Charles Finch and Luc Roeg at London-based Artists Independent Group. An adaptation by Lise Anne McLoughlin of an Elizabeth Bowen novel, The Letters is a drama set in the pre-war 1940s to be directed by Michael Radford. Filming will take place on location during August and September with a strong and predominantly female cast.

In the meantime John Boorman is in pre-production with a children's fantasy, Knight's Castle for a Summer shoot at Ardmore Studios and Ireland's film technicians are getting availability checks for a television remake of The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone and for a Chinese-backed Jackie Chan vehicle, The Highbinders.

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