Irish at eQuinoxe

IFTN reports that Irish screenwriters Abbie Spallen and James Phelan will be part of the group of ten writers chosen to attend the éQuinoxe screenwriting workshop in Balestrand in Norway.

Award winning playwright and screenwriter Abbie Spallen brings the project 'The Courtship Gift', an adaptation of a novel by Julie Parsons. This year's recipient of the Stewart Parker Award, Abbie recently adapted her very successful play 'Pumpgirl' into a feature film with funding from NI Screen and BBC NI. 'Pumpgirl' was screened at the Belfast Film Festival in April 2009. In 2007 she won the Tony Doyle Award for her screenplay 'Seven Drunken Knights'.

James Phelan's feature screenplay 'Banshee' was also selected for the workshop. The supernatural period thriller is set in Donegal and Waterford in 1898. It follows the unraveling of a mystery by an inquisitive doctor when an affluent family is besieged by a vengeful supernatural spirit.

James recently wrote the seven part comedy drama 'Rasai na Gaillimhe/The Galway Races' for TG4. Starring Don Wycherley (Bachelors Walk), Owen Roe (Cromwell in Ireland) and Ruth Bradley (Alarm), it will be broadcast this autumn on TG4. The series was directed by Robert Quinn and produced by Great Western Films.