Created by: Brian Durnin/Pierce Ryan/Gary Duggan
Executive Producers: Laura McNicholas/Cormac Fox/Brian Durnin
1815. Dublin is the second city of the British Empire and is a bustling, diverse and unpredictable place. The “Liberties” area of the Irish capital is a playground for the wealthy, a prison for the poor, a boiling pot of vice and violence. In the aftermath of the bloodshed of the 1798 Rebellion the Irish Parliament has been abolished and Dublin is a city divided. Tensions between the ruling elite and the working classes are at fever pitch. Rival sectarian gangs, the “Liberty Boys” and “Ormond Boys”, wage bloody battles for supremacy in the streets. This is not history from the pages of a book. You can feel the sweat, the smells, the desperation and the deceit. This place is a jungle. An ambitious, working-class boxer, Dan Donnelly is trying to fight his way out. Tangling with the local gangs and the authorities, Dan’s path crosses with Mary and William Kelly, Irish gentry siblings who are struggling for standing in the wake of their father ’s death. In the previous generations, many merchant Catholic families - including the Kelly family - have ‘ taken the soup’* in order to hold on to their lands and wealth. Though, proudly Irish, they now find themselves operating as a cog in the machine that runs the Empire. Dan Donnelly doesn’t even have this privilege, he just wants to feed his family, and the only real way he can is to fight. Dan becomes the focus of the Kellys’ make-or- break wager: can an unruly Irish fighter match an accomplished British champion? This bet awakens the confidence of a city. Together, Dan and the Kellys will challenge the rule of the establishment. Opposing them is Lord Rochesdale, patron of the champion and a powerful figure, deeply ensconced in the elite ruling class of Dublin society. THE LIBERTIES is an epic drama about a group of people, a city and a country who are finding out what they need, in order to really win.
Writers: Olivia Fitzsimons/Denise McCormack
MELODY SHEE is pregnant. She is unapologetic when she tells her husband PAT he is not the father and she finds herself alone amidst a judgemental, small-town Irish community, beset by Pat's indignant mother Agnes and the town gossips. As she navigates the dire circumstances of her pregnancy, Melody thinks about killing herself and the baby as she revisits the poisonous ruins of her marriage to Pat and the despair of her current situation with MARTIN TOPPY, a seventeen year old traveller boy, once her student, who is the father of her unborn child. In the midst of all this self-destruction Melody finds redemption through a new friendship with a young Traveller woman, MARY CROTHERY. Unable to have children, Mary Crothery is shunned by her estranged husband, his family and her community. She has returned from England in disgrace. Now home, Mary's mother disowns her and she becomes an outcast. The book is set over the nine months of Melody Shee's pregnancy giving us a strong timeline in which to set the film. At its core it is a story of female solidarity that traverses barriers of community and culture. Melody and Mary will find that redemption can come from the most unlikely of relationships, saving each other through embracing their differences in a world that is set against them In each other, Melody and Mary discover understanding, strength, and a love that the other lacks. Melody becomes Mary's saviour, offering her a safe place to live when Mary finds herself at the heart of a feud engulfing her community. Melody finds her own kind of refuge, through her friendship with Mary which brings a hope and joy into Melody's life that she had lost long ago. Whilst others pass judgement on Melody's relationship with Mary and the wider Travelling community, she challenges their long held bigoted views. Melody is drawn into the vortex of the feud eventually finding a way to offer hope of a new life to Mary Crothery and Martin Toppy, as she charts an uneasy path to her own bittersweet redemption through the pregnancy, birth and giving away her child.
Writers: Olivia Fitzsimons/Dr Aoife Bhreathnach
George Solomos. Publisher, Playboy, Poet. Meet the man who tried to bring sex, drugs and self-expression to 1970’s Ireland. And lost. The Little Green Handbook is a comedy drama about a man who whilst struggling with his own hidden sexuality decided to take on the Irish Catholic Church, The Censor Office and our nation's shame laden attitudes to sex, by educating Irish school children about their bodies, their desires and their right to self-expression. George ultimately failed and ended up facing the full might of an uptight state, deported by Charles Haughey himself, with a personal send off, as he escorted George onto the ferry back to Britain. Think Kinsey meets Masters Of Sex Irish style.
Created by: Iryna Serebriakova/Jean Philippe Andersen
Exec Producers: Aleksandra Kostina/Karina Kostyna/Brian Durnin
The lives of teenagers Ainaz, Slava and Lesia are ruined when they learn that they are victims of an illegal experiment: since their childhood and their minds are controlled by implanted software. The three teenagers start an investigation that turns into an attempt to break the system. . The revolutionary startup company Brain Plasticity offers tools for instilling in a child the qualities considered beneficial for success . Eventually, Brain Plasticity’s microchip and software are meant to shape an effective personality. It looks like a perfect solution for parents who hope to raise well-adapted successful children. However, three problems arise. First, the software does not always work as promised. The effects of high-tech upbringing through microchip technology are unpredictable. Secondly, the microchip is fragile and easy to damage. It is the situation of Slava. He is attacked by a gang and gets a head injury. As a result, the chip in his head loses the contact with the software and stops receiving signals that up until now shaped Slava’s personality. Now, Slava has to face typical teen problems: the need for self-affirmation, the pressure of parents and teachers, bulling, and insecurity. He is forced to solve these problems without technology support, and this unexpected freedom is traumatic for him. Thirdly, the software, as well as any program, can be pirated. The young hacker Ainaz does just that. Our three main protagonists find out that all the basic life decisions they considered their own, were made by the program. For 15 years, they have not been allowed to live their own life. Feeling deceived and betrayed, Slava, Lesia and Ainaz break into the rebellion.
Writers: Brian Durnin/Fergal Rock
Single mother Delores sleepwalks her way through work at the fish processing plant in Falcarragh. But when she decides to blackmail the local TD and pilar of the community Sean Fallon she unravels dark ties to the criminal underworld and unwittingly unleashes the kind of people you don’t want invited into your life. Yuri came to town from Kiev, Ukraine looking for revenge but now finds himself at the centre of Delores’ rapidly spiralling life after she runs him over with her car. Peter is the new cop in town and hoped for a non-eventful changeover from the retiring police chief Connolly Burns. However, this baton passing is shaping up to be anything but straightforward as two murders in a week send turn the small town upside down. As the various strands of this story become more and more intertwined, a grisly conclusion beckons for all involved.