25/10/2005

Nick Roeg who directed Donald Sutherland in the classic chiller Don’t Look Now in 1973, is teaming up again with the Canadian star actor in the new supernatural thriller Puffball, a co-production between the Ireland’s Grand Pictures, the UK’s Tall Stories and Canada’s Amérique Film. The project was also supported by the Northern Ireland Film Commission, the Irish Film Board, the UK Film Council and international sales are handled by Paris-based Wild Bunch.

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The €4m film will be put under the lence of Irish cinematographer Baz Irvine (Six Shooter) starting next January and alongside Donald Sutherland in the lead is the star of Minority Report and In America Samantha Morton. Based on the 1980 eponymous novel written by Fay Weldon (mother to the film’s UK co-producer Dan Weldon), the film tells of a dynamic American woman who settles in remote Cornish valley to renovate a ruined cottage given by her fiancé. But isolated and alone, she discovers she is pregnant and her world is turned upside down. When her neighbours turn against her and the unborn child, she finds herself battling for survival, fighting forces never imagined.

Puffball is produced by Grand Pictures’ Michael Garland who also made Dead Long Enough starring Angeline Ball and Spin The Bottle. Set up in 2000 by Garland and Paul Donovan, Grand Pictures is a recipient of MEDIA Slate Funding.