Saoirse Ronan is returning to her period roots with the David Heyman-produced Testament Of Youth. The Atonement actress, who’s lately made a detour into action, has become attached to the adaptation of Vera Brittain’s World War I memoir. The tome, adapted by Calendar Girls’ Juliette Towhidi, traces Brittain’s experiences as a disillusioned nurse during the war and the beginning of her career as a journalist and pacifist. Heyday Films and BBC Films are producing.
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You’ve gone from writing to directing films. What’s the status with your first directorial effort, ‘Violet and Daisy?’
GF: I couldn’t be happier with it. People have told me that they’ve never seen anything like it. It has its own universe and such an amazing cast. Everybody in the cast and crew “went for it” and delivered some of their best work ever.

Will it be released in theaters this year?
GF: Yes. In the fall.

What was the reception like when it debuted at the Toronto Film Festival last year?
GF: Really cool. We had a frenzied red carpet and each screening was sold out though we hadn’t done much publicity beforehand. The audience seemed to jump at all the surprises and laugh a lot. Towards the end, we saw a few people crying, in a good way I think. To me, it was so gratifying.
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IC: What’s the name of the fiction film?
Macdonald: It’s called “How I Live Now” and it’s like a very dark teen romance with Saoirse Ronan, who is the lead, and I don’t have the boy opposite. I mean I’ve seen like 2,000 children in the last five months in England and I can’t find the right person, so who knows? It may not make it for lack of having a good boy.
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He also revealed he is hoping to do start filming the movie this June (if they find a good male lead).

The action-adventure film, originally conceived as a Snow White project, will be directed by Michael Gracey.

Saoirse Ronan is in early negotiations to star in Disney’s Order of the Seven, an action-adventure movie set in China.

Commercials director and visual effects wizard Michael Gracey is directing the epic, which has a long development history — it was originally conceived as a revisionist East-meets-West Snow White tale.

In this iteration, the seven are a 19th century-set disparate band of international warriors belonging to a centuries-old order who have lost their way. They meet with an Englishwoman (Ronan) who is being chased by an ancient evil, and she proves to be the catalyst for their redemption.

While the project is set in China, the warriors will be from locales near (the U.S.) and far (Russia), and each warrior will have a unique fighting style.
Natalie Portman was loosely attached to star in the project when Francis Lawrence was on board as director and the Snow White elements were more emphasized.
Andrew Gunn is producing.

Seven puts Ronan, one of the more accomplished young actresses of her generation, back in action territory. Last year, she starred as an assassin in Joe Wright’s Hanna. She is best known for her work in Atonement and The Lovely Bones and this spring will shoot The Host, Andrew Niccol’s adaptation of a Stephenie Meyer sci-fi novel.
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Saoirse Ronan is set to present the Irish premiere of Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson’s latest production – The Adventures Of Tin Tin at the Savoy cinema in Dublin.

The Irish actress who worked with filmmaker Jackson on the production of The Lovely Bones, is set to welcome audience members to the premiere of the critically acclaimed 3D movie on Sunday.

The Adventures of Tin Tin, stars Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, and Daniel Craig, and is based on the iconic Tin Tin comics which have been consistently successful globally for decades.

The plot is based around the discovery of an elegant model of the ship the Unicorn at a market. Tintin (Bell) and his loyal dog Snowy are intrigued as to why so many desire it, and comment on the secrets it holds.

Arrivals commence at 5pm, screening commences at 5.30pm, Sunday October 23.
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“Violet & Daisy” is part of the special presentation line-up and has 3 screenings. The first screening is September 15, 6 pm at Visa Screening Room and we expect that Saoirse will attend that screening. The movie will have 3 screenings in total.

Thursday September 15
Visa Screening Room (Elgin)
6:00pm

Friday September 16
Ryerson
9:00pm

Sunday September 18
Scotiabank Theatre 1
9:00am

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Filmbase are celebrating their 25th anniversary this week with festivities taking place on Friday June 24th and Saturday June 25th. Events include a public interview with Oscar nominated actress Saoirse Ronan which will take place on June 25th. Saoirse is one of Ireland’s most successful actresses having played starring roles in Joe Wright’s ‘Hanna’, ‘Atonement’ and Peter Weir’s ‘The Way Back’.

Celebrations kick off at Filmbase’s Temple Bar location on Friday 24th June at 7pm with a special ‘Road to the Oscars’ panel session. The panel including Juanita Wilson (The Door, As If I Am Not There), Steph Green (New Boy) and Nicky Phelan (Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty). The panel will discuss how they got to the Oscars with their work following a screening of the Oscar-nominated short films.

Other events at the Filmbase 25th celebration include a Birthday Party, sponsored by Jameson, at Filmbase from 6pm-8pm on June 25th and screenings of short films, filmmakers speaking in the café in Filmbase, animation demos and top tricks and demo for the DSLR camera throughout the Saturday.

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Keira Knightly and Jude Law are reportedly attached to the film to play the title character and her husband. Despite reports indicating her involvement in the project, IFTN have also received confirmation that Saoirse Ronan is no longer attached to the film.
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Director Neil Jordan reunites with producer Stephen Woolley for mother-daughter bloodsucker pic.

CANNES — Oscar winning filmmaker Neil Jordan is reuniting with producer Stephen Woolley to make Byzantium, a female vampire movie with Saoirse Ronan and Gemma Arterton as the lead bloodsuckers.

The original script is penned by Moira Buffini and details the story of a mother vampire who turns her own daughter into a vampire and the pair form a lethal partnership, sometimes posing as sisters.

The £8 million ($11 million) budgeted movie is set to shoot in October.

Jordan and Woolley have made several movies dating back to 1984’s The Company of Wolves, based on Angela Carter’s novel.

Woolley produced Jordan’s Oscar winning The Crying Game also and last worked together on Breakfast on Pluto in 2005.

“I love the horror genre and we’ve been working on this for three or four years. I sent it to Neil and he liked the script,” Woolley said. “We’d both recently revisited Angela Carter’s book and it was just chance that when I called [Jordan], we were thinking along the same lines.”

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The original script is based on a youth theater play by Buffini but has been taken to a slightly more adult, darker level, Woolley said.

Woolley and Elizabeth Karlsen’s Number 9 Films production banner is gearing up to shoot its $17 million budgeted Mike Newell directed adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, penned by David Nicholls.

Cast includes Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes and Jeremy Irvine.

It is backed by Optimum Releasing, BBC Films and the British Film Institute, which now has lottery funding duties since the end of the U.K. Film Council. It is being sold here by Hanway Films.

Along with Number 9 Films production banner partner Elizabeth Karlsen, the company is gearing up to give longtime assistant and Number 9 stalwart Joanna Laurie her first taste of filmmaking.

Laurie is producing Hyena, an alternate London cops thriller written and directed by Gerard Johnson. Billed as a police noir inspired by Jean-Pierre Melville, one of the forerunners of the French New Wave, the film is set in contemporary West London amongst the Turkish and Albanian communities of asylum seekers.

It is being developed with Film4, the broadcaster’s standalone movie-making unit and marks Johnson’s second big screen outing and will star Peter Ferdinando.

Ferdinando appeared in Johnson’s debut horror thriller, Tony, about a serial killer in a rundown suburb of London. It is being sold at the Marche du Film by Independent.

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