Bette Midler, Kim Cattrall and Pixie Lott will all shortly arrive on Irish soil to shoot Bootstrap Films’ latest feature ‘Sweet Baby Jesus’. The film, set in Bethlehem, Maryland sees Lott play a pregnant young hippie in the seventies who visits her mother for Christmas along with her boyfriend Joe.
Bette Midler (Beaches) will play the mother of Lott’s Mary whilst Kim Cattrall (Sex and the City 2) will play the role of a local B&B owner who gossiping leads the occupants of the small town to believe that Mary’s pregnancy is a mark of the second coming. The role of Mary will be singer Pixie Lott’s first foray into acting. The character of Joe has not yet been cast.
’Sweet Baby Jesus’ is written by Steve Blair (I Do and I Don’t) and is to be directed by Peter Hewitt (Garfield, Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey) and produced for Cine8Media by former MGM Executive producer Philippe Rebboah and Bootstrap Films’ John Phelan (Benedict Arnold: A Question of Honour, The Magnificent Ambersons) who tells IFTN that the crew are currently scouting Irish locations for the film which is expected to shoot at the end of July or start of August this year mostly in Ireland with a short shoot also taking place in Maryland. The film's UK sales agents are Intandem UK.
“When I heard about the film I said ‘I love this, I want to be on board” he tells us. “And the three ladies are really looking forward to getting started too.” John also spoke about the important impact films where Ireland portrays different countries like this one have on Ireland “I have experienced this before with Kelsey Grammer and Aidan Quinn in ‘Benedict Arnold.” he explains “And even though the film happens during the American Civil War we were able to shoot it entirely in Ireland.
“We know we can apply for Section 481 and my aim is that we get as many Irish people involved because by and large Irish people can do very good American accents.”
