Neil's next

WITH his Michael Collins now in the fin stages of post production, Neil Jordan is not wasting any time and has already started pre production on his next feature film, The Butcher Boy, based on the novel by Patrick McCabe and adapted by Jordan in collaboration with McCabe.

Stephen Rea, a regular actor in Neil Jordan's films, is the first member of the cast to be confirmed for The Butcher Boy, and Jordan has drawn up a shortlist of actors for the title role. "You wouldn't know any of them," the director told Reel News this week. "They're all unknowns." The film starts shooting in July, he said, probably in the Clones area of Co Monaghan.

Meanwhile, Neil Jordan responded to speculation elsewhere that Michael Collins would be screened at next month's Cannes Film Festival. "We knew it would not be ready in time for Cannes, so we did not submit the film to the festival," he said. No release date has been set for Michael Collins, but it will not open here or in the US before the autumn.

A major international conference on film making will be hosted by the Trinity College Law School in Dublin on Monday, May 6th. The panels for the four scheduled seminars will bring together leading European and American producers and executives, along with many key people in the Irish film industry. The themes of the seminars are indigenous film production and what the future holds accessing studio and independent film making the practical realities of shooting a film in Ireland and the making of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.

Lawrence Beder, the producer of the two Tarantino movies, will be among the visiting speakers at the seminars, along with Paul Webster, senior executive vice president of production at Miramax Films in the US, Ruth Vitale of Fine Line Features in the US, Nik Powell of Scala Productions in London, German producer Chris Sievernich and CAA agent Ken Hardy.

The registration fee for the full day is £100. For further information, contact John O'Reilly on (01) 677-5828.

TOWARDS the beginning of the interminable BAFTA awards last Sunday night, compere Angus Deayton warned the Hollywood folk in attendance that a succession of British people would take home all the awards. His words were prophetic every one of the film awards on Sunday night went to British actors, directors or films. It makes one wonder why BAFTA bothers with the charade of nominating token non British talent in the first place.

It was Jane Austen who dominated the night and the previous Sunday's BAFTA craft awards. Sense And Sensibility, was named best picture, actress (Emma Thompson) and supporting actress (Kate Winslet). In the television awards, Persuasion (now on cinema release in Dublin) took five prizes for best single drama, photography, music, costume design, production design - and Pride And Prejudice took the best actress award for Jennifer Ehle. There were even Austen jokes, with Rory Bremner suggesting Gerry Adams for Semtex And Sensibility.

The only surprise was that Emma Thompson did not make it a double by taking the screenplay award instead, that went to John Hodge for Trainspotting. The British film maker Mike Radford took best director for the wildly over rated Italian movie, Il Postino, which also received the awards for best foreign language film and music score.

Nigel Hawthorne was named best actor for The Madness of King George, which was also voted best British film of the year. Tim Roth won best supporting actor for Rob Roy. At the BAFTA craft awards, Braveheart took the prizes for cinematography and film sound, while the special effects award went to Apollo 13 and The Usual Suspects took the prize for best film editing.

And congratulations to the Father Ted team of Graham Linehan, Arthur Mathews and Declan Lowney on winning the best TV comedy award against strong opposition; as they made their way to the stage, rival nominee Jennifer Saunders did not look happy.