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The €7.3m historical thriller The Duel, starring Irish actor Aidan Gillen, has wrapped principal photography in Poland, where it is one of the biggest films to shoot this year.

The film is a Poland-Ireland-Ukraine co-production between Marek Nowowiejski’s Bow & Axe Entertainment, David Collins’ Dublin-based Samson Films and Serhii Lavreniuk’s Solar Media Entertainment. Funding comes from Poland’s National Film Archive, Podkarpackie Regional Film Fund, Di Factory, the Polish Film Institute, Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, Media Virtuosa Foundation, as well as Screen Ireland and the Irish tax credit. Monolith Films has Polish rights.

Directed by Lukasz Palkowski,...

The €7.3m historical thriller The Duel, starring Irish actor Aidan Gillen, has wrapped principal photography in Poland, where it is one of the biggest films to shoot this year.

The film is a Poland-Ireland-Ukraine co-production between Marek Nowowiejski’s Bow & Axe Entertainment, David Collins’ Dublin-based Samson Films and Serhii Lavreniuk’s Solar Media Entertainment. Funding comes from Poland’s National Film Archive, Podkarpackie Regional Film Fund, Di Factory, the Polish Film Institute, Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, Media Virtuosa Foundation, as well as Screen Ireland and the Irish tax credit. Monolith Films has Polish rights.

Directed by Lukasz Palkowski,...

Peter Webber has signed on to direct the wartime thriller “Irena Sendler.” It tells the true story of Irena Sendler, a Polish social worker who defied the Nazis and organized a team of young women to smuggle 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust. Casting is currently underway and production is expected to start in Poland later this year or early in 2024.

The script was penned by Agatha Dominik, Brian Pittman & Rachel Long, Stuart Hazeldine, and Jeff Most. The film will be produced by Most (“The Crow”), BAFTA Award winning and Academy Award winning producer Ewa Puszczyńska, Jeff Rice, Armory Films’ Christopher Lemole and Tim Zajaros, and Golden Globe winning producer Gareth Wiley of Phoenix Wiley.

“Irene Sendler was an icon, an inspiration, an incredibly brave young woman who risked her own life to save hundreds of young children in the Warsaw Ghetto from certain death at...

Exclusive: Stuart Hazeldine, who helmed Lionsgate’s $97M faith-based hit The Shack, will next direct the wartime thriller Irena Sendler, about the Polish social worker who organized a team of young women to smuggle 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto in defiance of the Nazi extermination program.

Pic will be produced by Armory Films which has been relishing some great success at the specialty box office recently with its SXSW and Deauville Audience winner The Peanut Butter Falcon (current B.O. $15M).

Irena Sendler is being written by Agatha Dominik, Brian Pittman & Rachel Long and Hazeldine. The film will be produced by Jeff Most, Jeff Rice, Armory Films’ Christopher Lemole and Tim Zajaros, and BAFTA and Oscar-winning producer Ewa Puszczyńska of Extreme Emotions. Golden Globe winning producer Gareth Wiley of Phoenix Wiley will serve as Ep.

Most along with Jeff Rice obtained Sendler’s authorized biography and life rights, including access to unpublished details about her life, as well as securing her blessing to tell her story prior to her passing in 2008. Ingenious Media arranged the funding for the development of the script.

Armory Films’ Christopher Lemole and Tim Zajaros tell Deadline, “What Irena and her courageous group of women were able to accomplish is miraculous. It’s remarkable that so few people know about her incredible story. We couldn’t be more excited to have Stuart on board to direct this incredible script and tell the world the story of the inspirational hero Irena Sendler.”

Most added, “Knowing her as I did, I’m certain that if Irena Sendler was alive today she would be thrilled that her story is in the capable hands of Stuart Hazeldine, who has crafted a compelling vision to bring one of the most daring, exciting and moving tales of WW2 to the big screen.”

Hazeldine’s feature directorial debut Exam starring Luke Mably and Chukwudi Iwuji and Gemma Chan was nominated for a BAFTA in the British filmmaker debut category. Hazeldine is repped by Wme, Brillstein Entertainment and Stone Genow Smelkinson Binder & Christopher.

Oakhurst Entertainment is plotting a drama series based on the life of Victoria Woodhull, Variety has learned exclusively.

Oakhurst, founded by former Brillstein Entertainment manager Jai Khanna and producer Marina Grasic, has acquired Agatha Dominik’s script “Woodhull,” which is based on the biography “The Woman Who Ran For President: The Many Lives of Victoria Woodhull”, written by Lois Beachy Underhill. Michele Berk of Lotus Pictures will produce along with Oakhurst. The project is currently out to talent.

Dominik is repped by Gersh.

Woodhull was born in the early 1800s. In the course of her life, she lived a true rags-to-riches story, became a prominent figure in the spiritualist movement, and became the first woman to become a Wall Street broker and the first woman to run for President of the United States among other firsts.

“Dominik has created a beautiful portrait of one of the most interesting women in Us history,...

Barbara Hershey is going behind bars in Left To Die. The Black Swan co-star and Oscar nominee will play an innocent woman thrown in an Ecuadorian jail for drug trafficking in the Lifetime TV movie, which begins production this month ahead of a 2013 premiere. Hershey’s character’s only hope is her daughter Tammi’s belief in her mother’s innocence and her fight to free her; Rachel Leigh Cook is set to play Tammi. Leon Ichaso is directing from a script by Agatha Dominik and Suzette Couture. Sony Pictures Television, Blue Blazer Productions and Sandbar Pictures will produce. Frank von Zerneck, Danielle von Zerneck, Elizabeth Zox Friedman, Greg Little and Tammi Chase will executive produce. Hershey — who currently appears on ABC’s Once Upon A Time playing Cora, the mother of the Evil Queen — is repped by Pakula/King & Associates, Impression Entertainment and attorney Marcy Morris.

If anyone attempts to sell you the idea that Christian Duguays, Boot Camp is a horror film: punch them in the face, hard. The idea behind the film, which is (very) loosely based on factual events, boils down to child manipulation, isolation, torture and murder. The problem with Boot Camp, is that screenwriters Agatha Dominik and John Cox are too damn afraid to push the boundaries far enough to even pretend to be horror. Maybe they never felt t…...

Chicago – Time to catch up with the DVD Round-Up, a collection of titles that may have slipped under your radar while you were busy blogging about Inglourious Basterds” or programming your DVR for the new Fall TV season.

This week’s titles are a motley crew of horror, drama, action, and a couple of films clearly tied to bigger theatrical releases. “Like Mila Kunis in “Extract”? Why not check her out in “Boot Camp”?” “Like Kelli Garner in “Taking Woodstock”? Take a look at “Red Velvet””

Plot synopsis, cast, and special features information - what you really want to know - for a half-dozen titles follow. At least one should make your Netflix queue.

“Dark Rising” and “London to Brighton” were released on August 11th, 2009.

“Boot Camp” and “Red Velvet” were released on August 25th, 2009.

“Homeboy” was released on September 1st, 2009.

“Boot Camp”

Photo credit: Fox Synopsis: “Sophie Bauer’s...