Director Ken Loach is to start shooting his next film, thetentatively titled The Wind That Shakes The Barley, in Cork, Ireland,next month.

The Irish Civil War drama is written by Loach's regularcollaborator, Paul Laverty. Named after a 19th century politicalsong, the film revolves around a family and one of the so-called flyingcolumns, the Irish guerrilla units that lived rough as they fought the Britishon the run, between 1919 and the early 1920s. Through their eyes, we see theeffect of the Anglo-Irish war and the subsequent Civil War that shaped thecountry.

'Thefilm is based on real events but it is the war in microcosm, not historicallyword perfect,' said Loach's regular producer Rebecca O'Brien. 'It isbased on events that did happen, but it is not going be God's own truth. Thatwould be presumptuous.'

The European co-production follows on from Loach's recentScottish trilogy of Ae Fond Kiss, Sweet Sixteen and My Name Is Joeand has a Euros 5-7m budget.

Yesterday it was announced the film had received Euros250,000 in funding from German subsidy bodyFilmstiftung NRW (see separate story on ScreenDaily.com today).

For an extended interview with O'Brien on The WindThat Shakes The Barley, see next week's Screen International (April 15).

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