As mentioned in the last production news piece that I filed (back in a time
when there was such a thing as production happening in the country), one of
the main features being shot in Galway this summer was Hofnaflus Teo’s
Finklestein’s Miracle. Based on an original novel by Australian Dando Collins, and adapted away from its Australian setting by the film’s director, Peter McKenzie, the story concerns the slightly dodgy Finklestein, who borrows money from the Chinese Triads to make a film but blows it all in the casino’s of Las Vegas. The Triads are looking for their cash when Finklestein is told by an associate that a director is wanted to shoot an already funded $20 million feature in Ireland. He arrives to discover that
the budget is in fact £20,000, money the locals should be spending on a new
sewerage system, but they reckon that if they can make a "Braveheart" their
little town will be put on the tourist map. Unfortunately the film the
locals want to make revolves around the Bible, and the Jewish Finklestein
quickly finds himself out of his depth amongst the Catholic Irish. There
follows various ‘hilarious Oirish' carrying on, the end result of which is
Finklestein producing a massive hit and solving all his problems.
Originally scheduled to shoot at the beginning of July, the film ran into
difficulties when its lead actor, one Henry ‘Fonz’ Winkler, had to pull out
of his agreed starting date due to family problems (allegedly a divorce),
and was replaced by Ron Silver of Veronica’s Closet fame. Ron’s Orthodox
Jewish religion however, placed further constraints on the schedule, with Mr
Silver needing to be in Dublin at particular times for praying purposes
and being unavailable for work on various Jewish rest days. On top of these
headaches, Phoenix magazine painted an unflattering portrait of Scott
Millaney and Brian Callaghan, the film’s producers, in it’s July 16th issue.
Glyn Carragher, Hofnaflus’s production co-ordinator, dismissed the Phoenix
story and explained that Hofnaflus’s role was that of a production facility
house and shoot co-ordinators. The main problem, he explained, was that they
had built interior and exterior sets for the film, including an entire
street, on the Ros na Run set in Spiddal, but because of the problem’s with
actor’s dates they are now in a situation where they are unable to complete
the necessary three week shoot there as Ros na Run began shooting on August
2nd and will continue to shoot until next April.
Rumour’s abounded that the shoot would be moved to mid September and take
place in the Bunratty theme park village, but as Glyn Carragher pointed out, the
logistics of closing off the park or shooting around the peak tourist season
visitors proved too difficult and it would now appear that the shoot will be
postponed until Ros na Run finishes in April, whereupon the original
location schedule will be adhered to. "We’re covered for the cast in April
and the financiers are happy about April", says Carragher. "A lot of the
groundwork has been done and a lot of that groundwork will be useful in
April. We had to fight hard to stop it going to the Isle of Man so we’re
not going to give up on it". With a budget of $5.5 million in place, it now
seems that Silver will play the lead role and Winkler will come back to
play a smaller part, that of Finklestein’s lawyer. There is also unconfirmed
reports that Mercedes Ruehl will play the female lead. I asked Glyn Carragher what the story was with SIPTU and he told me that they’d had a very productive
meeting with Pat Keenan and that all SIPTU card holders were being paid to
SIPTU scale and that the union didn’t have a problem with non-card holders
working on the shoot. And although the film now won’t happen until 2000,
there’s brighter news on Hofnaflus’s horizon. Having co-ordinated the
shooting on digi-Beta of the pilot show for a new British sci-fi series
called Dreamers last April, Carragher is optimistic that the show will be
picked up for a further 13 episodes, "80% of which will be shot in
Ireland".
NF 5/8/99
