Jamie Dornan and Conor MacNeill launch new production company, Blackthorn Films

Actors Jamie Dornan and Conor MacNeill have launched a new production company, Blackthorn Films.

The company is based in Northern Ireland where the two were born and raised. They met on the set of 2015 film The Siege of Jadotville, and have co-starred in projects like The Tourist, The Fall and Belfast.

“Blackthorn Films was born out of a shared desire to create indigenous stories from the island of Ireland that have a true global reach,” said Dornan and MacNeill. “The company’s aim is to produce work that flips the lens and presents fresh narratives, particularly from the North of the country.”

Blackthorn recently received the BBC’s TV Small Indie Fund, an effort that supports grassroots production companies across the UK. They also hired producer Shauna Shivers-McAtamney to oversee their film and TV docket, who’s worked as a script editor for BBC-Hulu’s adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Conversations With Friends, BAFTA-nominated comedy The Dry and the upcoming drama Trespasses.

“We are both most creatively content when working at home and we are excited to collaborate with the wealth of skilled and talented filmmakers there, many of whom we have worked with before,” the pair said. “The professionalism, positive mindset and down to Earth nature of the key talent and crews in Ireland, North and South, is something we want to harness and embolden.”