Written by Stacey Gregg, the film stars IFTA award nominee Seána Kerslake (
A Date For Mad Mary,
The Hole in the Ground) and BAFTA award nominee Patrick Kielty (
My Dad, The Peace Deal and Me), who is best known for his comedy and television work. Read our interview with Seána Kerslake.
Ballywalter is produced by James Bierman of Empire Street Productions
(Genius) and Nik Bower of Riverstone Pictures (
Final Portrait, The Wedding Guest) in co-production with Alan Maher and John Wallace of Cowtown Pictures (
Rialto), and Brian Falconer (
Ordinary Love) of Out of Orbit.
The film, which began production in early January, is financed by the BFI awarding funds from the National Lottery, Screen Ireland, Northern Ireland Screen, and Salmira Productions. Bankside Films are handling worldwide sales. Deepak Nayar, Natascha Wharton, Celine Haddad, Salman Al-Rashid and Sam Frohman serve as executive producers.
They include additional Covid-related production awards for BFI-backed projects interrupted at the start of pandemic such as
Benediction (£341,182),
Pirates (£360,000).
Nearly all 10 titles, with the exception of
Earwig, also received £20,000 as part of pilot initiative BFI Step-up, which enabled productions to provide opportunities for production crew from under-represented groups to work on BFI-funded features
1.
Source: Lupus Films
‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’
Sally Hawkins, Cillian Murphy and Ken Watanabe are among the English-language voice cast of this animated feature, based on Michael Morpurgo’s bestselling children’s novel of the same name and adapted by Frank Cottrell-Boyce (
The Railway Man). It marks the feature directorial debut of both Neil Boyle, whose credits as an animator include