DANNY DEVITO has announced that his next feature film is to be filmed in Ireland next year.

DeVito will direct ‘The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle’, based on the novel by Avi, starring Pierce Brosnan and Morgan Freeman.

The $28m film tells the story of a 13-year-old Charlotte, an upper middle-class girl from the 1830s whose passenger sailing from Liverpool to the US, results in her being the only passenger on a ship with a ruthless captain and mutinous crew.

The Irish Film Board said the film was originally intended be shot in the US, but that DeVito and his producers had been convinced to shoot in Ireland after the board had helped to scout Irish locations for him.

“We are delighted they have now decided to bring this $28m feature film to shoot entirely in Ireland next year,” producer Tristan Orpen Lynch said. “This high-level production will provide an excellent employment opportunity for Irish cast and crew.”

The film will be produced by Irish DreamTime, Revelations Entertainment and Clear Black Films, and co-produced by Irish company Subotica Films.

News of the film was announced at the Toronto International Film Festival, which is continuing in Canada. Irish work has been to the fore in Toronto this year, with Glenn Close being widely lauded for her role in ‘Albert Nobbs’, written by John Banville and shot in Dublin and Wicklow.

The Guardian described Close as “terrific” in the lead role of a woman who dresses as a man to work as a butler in a hotel. Close had played the role on stage decades ago and had spent many years trying to have it adapted for the big screen.

Other Irish works being screened with critical acclaim at TIFF include ‘Death of a Superhero’, ‘The Other Side of Sleep’ and ‘The Moth Diaries’.

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