Curtain goes up on Screen Ireland-supported trio of drama coproductions

Delegates began gathering for Content London on Monday

CONTENT LONDON: Three new Irish dramas are being revealed by funding agency Screen Ireland today at Content London.

All three series — Dublin-based Irish/Belgian copro Northern Lights, dark Irish comedy-crime series Obituary and historical drama The Liberties — are produced with international partners and supported by Screen Ireland, the national agency for the Irish film, TV drama, animation and documentary industry.

Disney-owned US streamer Hulu and Irish pubcaster RTÉ are already on board Obituary, from Tua Films and the UK’s APC Studios. 925 Productions is the company behind The Liberties while Deadpan Pictures is working on Irish-Belgian coproduction Northern Lights.

Screen Ireland’s Content London panel, taking place tonight at 5.30pm in Kings Place, follows on the heels of its Q3 funding round, which will see upwards of €350,000 (US$362,890) invested in the development and production of Irish drama projects.

These include an untitled in-development drama from Irish director Kirsten Sheridan and production funding for Louise Lives Large, an eight-part series for young audiences in partnership with national broadcaster RTÉ.

Other in-development Irish TV projects to be showcased this week in London include: Clean Sweep, a dark thriller from ZDF Studios and Irish production company ShinaWiL; and The Vanishing Triangle, a drama series from Virgin Media TV in coproduction with AMC Networks’ Sundance Channel US.

Screen Ireland introduced development funding for TV drama in 2015, boosting TV drama production spend in Ireland by 145%. Drama production spend increased by 40% between 2019 and 2021 alone.

Calling 2021 “a record-breaking year” for Irish drama, Désirée Finnegan, chief executive of Screen Ireland, said: “The global outlook of Irish TV production makes industry events like Content London an excellent opportunity to showcase Irish creative and production talent to the international industry.”