Ireland’s ShinAwiL­­ Moves into Drama

ShinAwiL­­, an Irish outfit known for its production of unscripted entertainment formats, has launched an international drama division.

The projects, all in receipt of funding from national screen agencies, mark ShinAwiL’s first scripted development slate. The first project in the slate is Kill, a 6×1-hour contemporary crime drama written by Barry Devlin (Ballykissangel, The Darling Buds of May), being developed in partnership with Screen Ireland and RTÉ. The series is set in the unfortunately named tourist Irish hotspot of Kill, as local cop Tom Dolan struggles to solve a series of bizarre murders.

ShinAwiL­­’s second drama in development is Tara and the Humanimals, a 13×30-minute tween drama being developed in partnership with The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI), the Canadian Media Fund and Canadian indie CCI Entertainment. The series is set around a young girl sent to Ireland to live with her estranged father. She soon discovers that she’s a descendent of an ancient line of Druids and begins to explore her strange inherited powers.

And the third project on the Series Mania slate is Flying Bird, a 4×1-hour period drama written by Irish novelist and screenwriter Ann-Marie Casey. The series is in development with funding from Screen Ireland. The series features the incredible story of the first nonstop Transatlantic flight in June 1919 when British aviators John Alcock and Arthur Brown flew a modified WWI Vickers Vimy bomber from St. John’s, Newfoundland to Connemara in Ireland.

Larry Bass, CEO of ShinAwiL, said: “We’re excited to be heading to Series Mania with three exciting new drama projects in development with some of Ireland’s brightest writing and directing talent. We’re already in discussions with various distribution and broadcast partners and look forward to showcasing these fantastic projects to new co-production partners in Lille.”