in-flagrante

EXCLUSIVE: Michelle Dockery and Eva Birthistle have joined Imelda Staunton in the cast of Ita Fitzgerald’s UK-Ireland drama West The Road for Bankside Films.

Produced by Matthew James Wilkinson and Jamie Harvey for the UK’s Stigma Films and John Wallace of Ireland’s Cowtown Pictures, the film will start shooting in western Ireland later this year. It marks the feature debut of Fitzgerald, an Irish writer-director based in London, who began her career in TV.

Charlie Murphy and Philippa Dunne have also joined the cast.

AdvertBankside has pre-sold the film to Benelux (Paradiso), Bulgaria (Beta), former Yugoslavia (MCF), Eastern Europe (HBO), Israel (Nachshon) and Spain (A Contracorriente).

West The Road tells the story of a group of women brought together by the death of their childhood friend. When they discover their friend was forced to give her daughter up for adoption at the age of 15, the group embark on a journey from the west of Ireland up the Wild Atlantic coastline – accompanied by a donkey called Thatcher – in the hope of connecting the child with their grandmother.