Northern Cowboys and Loose Women

NORTHERN COWBOYS AND LOOSE WOMEN

FORMER Hollyoaks star, Sarah Jayne Dunn, will be appearing on ITV’s Loose Women tomorrow (Friday March 23) to talk about life after the Liverpool soap – and to give a sneak preview of her latest project – Lancashire-produced film, Northern Cowboys.

“This will be the first time footage of Northern Cowboys will have been seen, so to get even a clip on national TV is fantastic. I’m sure everyone will be delighted when they see Sarah’s performance in it. She was a natural for the part of Sally,” says the film’s producer, John Maxwell.

Northern Cowboys was only made after John, together with director Martin Talbot, won £9,000 in funding from North West Vision, the film, TV and digital media development agency for the Northwest. “We applied to North West Vision’s Maxi Digital Shorts Film Scheme for 2006, which gave us the funding to make a ten-minute short film.

“It was always our goal to develop the film into a full-length feature film. The world Northern Cowboys is set in has such wide appeal, so together with the musical elements and the comedy, we’re convinced it would make a fab feature,” says John.

North West Vision’s Head of Production Development, Helen Bingham, says the film shows huge potential. “This is the second award we have made to John and Martin. Last year we commissioned them to make a short film, Tizz, which was very successful on atomfilms.com

“We have great hopes for Northern Cowboys, and we will be taking it to showcase in Cannes in May.”

Northern Cowboys tells the story of Deano (played by Stephen Billington), a self-obsessed Country and Western singer, who dreams of stardom. Together with his group, The Finger Lickin' Five, they enter a Country Music 'Battle of the Bands' where they must compete with arch rivals, 'The Undertakers', for the prize of a lifetime, a trip to Nashville.

Sarah Jayne plays the part of Sally, girlfriend to the Undertaker’s lead singer, played by former Emmerdale star, Jeff Hordley.

“The entire cast and crew really pulled together to make sure we made the best short film we possibly could. We’re looking forward to taking it to Film Festivals, and we have high hope for the Edinburgh Film Festival later this year,” explains John.

But his sights are set even higher. “Without a doubt, this film deserves to be developed into a feature film. North West Vision is currently running a competition called Digital Departures, which will see three feature films written, filmed and produced in Liverpool, to coincide with the Capital of Culture celebrations in 2008.

“It’s our aim to be selected as one of the three,” says John, of Liverpool. “It would be our first feature film, and we’re determined to go all-out to try and secure the £250,000 funding which North West Vision and its partners are offering to each filmmaking team.”

· For further information, log on to www.northerncowboys.com

· For information about Digital Departures, log on to www.digitaldepartures.co.uk