Filming has started on The South Westerlies, a new Irish comedy-drama commissioned by RTÉ and Acorn Media Enterprises.
In The South Westerlies, a small coastal town in the south-west of Ireland is earmarked for a Norwegian-owned wind farm, but it isn’t just the spectacular scenery that is under pressure. For a single working mother, tasked with going undercover to bring the project home, her eco-battle is compounded by the return of a crinkly-eyed surfer with an unmistakable resemblance to her teenage son.
Orla Brady (American Horror Story, Into the Badlands, Mistresses) leads the cast as Kate Ryan, a Dublin-based environmental compliance consultant working for Norwegian energy giant Noreg Oil. She’s on the verge of a lucrative promotion and transfer to the company’s headquarter office in Oslo, but there’s a caveat: the successful delivery of a final assignment for NorskVentus, Noreg Oil’s new wind-power subsidiary.
Despite getting planning permission for their wind farm, to be situated offshore from the West Cork town of Carrigeen, ongoing local protests are creating a PR nightmare for Noreg Oil. So Kate must go undercover in Carrigeen to quash objections and smooth the path for imminent turbine installation before the six-week appeals deadline is up — or her promotion is off the table.
Kate is furious. Her son Conor (Sam Barrett, The Happy Prince) isn’t thrilled either; he hadn’t planned on spending six weeks with his mother in West Cork over the summer. Be that as it may, what overrides both their emotions is Kate’s intention to keep old secrets firmly under wraps.
The ensemble cast of The South Westerlies includes Eileen Walsh (Catastrophe, Women on the Verge) as Breege, Ger Ryan (Little Dog, Raw) as Noreen, Lily Nichol (MJ, Handymen) as Poppy, Steve Wall (Dominion Creek, Rebellion) as Baz, and Patrick Bergin (Sleeping with the Enemy, Red Rock) as Michael.
Filming on the ten-week shoot will continue until mid-November, in locations including Wicklow town and Cork in Ireland, as well as Oslo in Norway.
RTÉ (Taken Down, Finding Joy, Striking Out) and Acorn Media Enterprises partnered up to commission the six-part series with Dublin-based Deadpan Pictures, alongside ZDF Enterprises and TV2 Norway, in association with Screen Ireland. Anagram Norway is providing production services in Oslo.
A production of Deadpan Pictures (Can’t Cope, Won’t Cope, Moone Boy, Trivia), The South Westerlies is created by Catherine Maher and written by Catherine Maher, Hugh Travers, Hilary Reynolds, and Michelle Duffy. It is directed by Simon Gibney (Doctors, Father Brown) and Declan Recks (Drop Dead Weird, The Clinic).
The series is produced by Deadpan Pictures’ Ailish McElmeel, and produced by Candida Julian-Jones. Executive producers include Shane Murphy and Justin Healy for RTÉ, Catherine Mackin and Bea Tammer from Acorn Media Enterprises, Paul Donovan for Deadpan Pictures, and Ann Kolbjørnsen and Ole Marius Araldsen for Anagram.
The South Westerlies will premiere in 2020 on RTÉ in Ireland and shortly thereafter in the United States on Acorn TV as an Acorn TV Original.
Stay tuned for updates.
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