Brendan Foley
Brendan Foley is an Irish writer, film producer and director.
He grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland and has written feature scripts for producers and studios in UK, Hollywood, Canada, Denmark, South Africa and Thailand. He wrote and produced the 2005 action-thriller Johnny Was, starring Vinnie Jones, Eriq La Salle and Patrick Bergin. The film won awards including Audience Awards and Best Feature Awards from six film festivals .
He wrote, produced and directed thriller The Riddle in 2006, starring Derek Jacobi, Vinnie Jones and Vanessa Redgrave. In September 2007, The Riddle became the world's first feature film to be released as a DVD premiere by a national newspaper. The UK's Mail on Sunday bought UK DVD rights and distributed 2.6 million copies, making the film one of the most widely watched independent films in the UK.
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During 2006-7 Foley wrote and directed Legend of the Bog, a satirical horror film set in rural Ireland, starring Vinnie Jones, Jason Barry (Titanic) and Nora Jane Noone (The Descent). It was released by Lionsgate in the US on DVD in 2009. He then co-created and was a writer on Shelldon, a children's environmental animated TV series on NBC (2010–12, and "Byrdland" five seasons of animated TV series in Asia with GMM Grammy). He recently completed feature screenplays "Addae's Journey" a rites of passage story for London's Devonshire Productions and "Endurance" a family drama for Hannover Films in Denmark. In 2014 Variety reported that he was chosen to write and direct Sonata, an upcoming planned film starring Booboo Stewart from the X-Men and Twilight franchises.
In TV drama, in 2015 he started developing a new TV detective series for BBC TV, Farmoor (makers of The Fall) and Northern Ireland Screen(UK home of Game of Thrones) and in 2016 Tunnel Kings, a mini-series on World War II POW ‘escape-artists’ for CBC and Dream Street, Canada. He is also working with China’s biggest TV producer, Croton Media, on a new international English-language action-fantasy series based on Chinese mythology. He recently completed pilot scripts for SOS, a new eco-thriller series by Finnish producers Luminoir, and Kvenland, set in the Dark Ages. Previously he wrote the pilot for drama Dr Feelgood for Monday TV, Denmark.
He has written books for US and UK publishers. Under The Wire, a World War II POW escape drama, which he wrote along with its subject, pilot William Ash, was published by Random House, London and St Martin's Press, New York in 2005 and 2006. It became a best-seller, reaching number one on Amazon UK's history and biography charts. His next book, Archerfield, a novel, published in 2015, covers 16,000 years of history in one square mile of Scotland.
Prior to his work in TV and film he was a freelance international features journalist. His work covering business, the environment and conflict included feature assignments in 77 countries worldwide. His writing ranged from features on bomb disposal in Angola, to the Exxon Valdez oil-spill in Alaska.
He is a member of the Writers Guild (GB), a Fellow of the British Association of Communicators in Business, and was made an honorary life member of the National Union of Journalists in June 2006.