Neeson To Partner Nesbitt In New NI Drama?

Small-screen star, James Nesbitt is to return to his home turf in Northern Ireland to begin filming a new drama - and he looks set to be joined by international movie star and fellow countryman, Liam Neeson - who may also be signed-up to star.

Nesbitt will begin shooting the one off drama, Five Minutes Of Heaven, which explores aspects of Northern Ireland's troubled past and the challenges the future holds in coming to terms with it shortly.

The story follows a 1975 murder, as told through the eyes of the 17-year-old gunman and the victim's brother, 11, who witnessed the killing.

Nesbitt will play the grown-up brother in the present day, as the murderer and victim continue to deal with the emotional fall-out of the Troubles.

It will be directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, who was behind Oscar-nominated Hitler movie, Downfall.

Scriptwriter Guy Hibbert, who also worked on the film Omagh about the 1998 bombing, said the first part of the movie was "an accurate, dramatised reconstruction of the events leading to the murder in 1975".

"The action of the remainder of the film, set in present day, is fiction but based on their emotional response to the fictional situations their characters have been placed in, following close liaison with both men," he said.

The first part is based on real events. Alistair Little, 17, a member of the illegal loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster Volunteer Force, murdered 19-year-old Catholic Jim Griffin in Lurgan.

Little and three others were arrested two weeks later and was later convicted, serving over 12 years in prison.

The scriptwriter added: "Working separately with both Alistair and Joe on the fictional areas provided a unique way of telling this story, and revealed there were no easy answers."

Joe Griffin is played by James Nesbitt (Murphy's Law and Bloody Sunday), while the role of Alistair has yet to be confirmed, but may be taken by Liam Neeson.

Patrick Spence, Head of Drama for BBC Northern Ireland, said: "Northern Ireland is a society emerging from conflict. We wanted to develop and produce a single film, which, in a responsible way, marks part of that transition.

"We have done this by recording powerful personal testimonies of the two individuals whose lives have been determined by the Troubles."

Commissioned by BBC Drama Northern Ireland, the one-off is being made by Big Fish Films, in association with Ruby Films, for BBC Two.

Co-financed from Northern Ireland Screen, Pathe will be acting as the international distributor for the film outside the UK and Ireland.

Filming will begin at the end of May for five weeks in Belfast.

It was commissioned for BBC Two by Jane Tranter, Controller, Fiction and Roly Keating, Controller, BBC Two.

(BMcC)