The film The Miracle Club, which is based in Dublin and stars Kathy Bates and Maggie Smith, has received €1.5 million in support from a new UK post-Brexit fund.
The comedy, which is in pre-production, has also secured €350,000 in funding from Screen Ireland. It is being executively produced by Embankment films, which is based in London. Dublin’s ShinAwiL Limited and Zephyr Films are producers.
The UK Global Screen Fund, which is financed by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport and administered by the British Film Institute, selected The Miracle Club as one of nine films to receive funding.
The one-year pilot fund was designed to expand international development and distribution opportunities for the UK’s independent screen sector after Brexit and set up to replace grants from Creative Europe’s Media sub-programme.
The fund has also provided supports to Bring Them Down, a drama set in the west of Ireland starring Paul Mescal, along with The Ghastly Ghoul, an animated film from Dublin-based Dream Logic Studios.
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The Miracle Club, which is being directed by Thaddeus O’Sullivan, who was born in Dublin, is based on the screenplay Pushers Needed by Jimmy Smallhorne, an Irish screenwriter, in collaboration with Timothy Prager and Josh Maurer.
The film is based in the 1960s and follows three working-class women from Ballyfermot, north Dublin, who embark on a pilgrimage to Lourdes in the south of France after winning the trip at a local raffle.
Having never before left Dublin, the journey provides the chance for the women to let their hair down, celebrate life and delight in some independence. However, they have a very important role to play when they arrive in Lourdes — to act as “pushers” to enable seriously ill and disabled pilgrims to bathe in the town’s healing springs.
Bates, who has won multiple awards and starred in Misery and Titanic, will play Eileen Dunne, while Smith, whose previous roles include Harry Potter and Downton Abbey, will star as Lily Fox. Laura Linney, known for Ozark and Primal Fear, will play Chrissie.
Speaking previously about The Miracle Club, Maurer said: “At its heart, this film captures the strength, resilience, and love of remarkable women as they define themselves under their own terms, and by the power of their friendship and faith.”
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The film is scheduled to begin production in Dublin next April.