#52 | Michael Garland | Producer (Dark Lies The Island)
Michael broke his teeth as Financial Controller for Palace Productions working on such projects as Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves and The Crying Game, and Michael Caton-Jones' Scandal. In 1995 he produced This is the Sea starring Richard Harris and Gabriel Byrne for Overseas Film Group. He later produced Accelerator which was screened at Cannes and Montreal. His company Grand Pictures was established in early 2000 and has produced the award-winning TV series Paths to Freedom and Fergus's Wedding with Michael as producer. Spin the Bottle, produced by Michael and based on the cult hero of Paths to Freedom, was a domestic box office hit, won a number of IFTAs and also won Best Feature at the Boston Irish Film Festival. In 2006 Michael produced Puffball and in 2008 he produced The Race, an Irish/German co-production. Michael is also developing a slate of projects including I'll Take Care of It by Andrew Meehan and Dark Lies The Island by Kevin Barry, both to be directed by Ian FitzGibbon, and The Dead Spit of Kelly from a story by Flann O'Brien. Michael's other work includes, an Irish-German co-production shot in Ireland starring Andy Serkis and Thomas Brodie Sangster entitled Death of a Superhero, Michael also executive produced Titanic – Blood and Steel, a co-production with the Italian company DAP. His latest release "Dark Lies the Island" just recently won the audience award for best feature at the 2019 Dingle Film Festival.