By Carol Patton
Photos by Claire Folger
The Tin is what the Boston cops call their badge and the place they hang out.
In the past few years, films about working class Boston and the law enforcement officials who police it have achieved remarkable popular, critical and commercial success, as well as extraordinary attention at Oscar time. The archetype of the tough, hard-drinking Irish- American has supported these dramas and imbued them with a distinctive regional tone that nonetheless resonates with viewers nationally and internationally.
But Boston has always been a diverse city and it is even more so today. As “The Sopranos” reinvigorated the mob genre by expanding the action from Little Italy and Brooklyn into suburban New Jersey,“TheTin” will accompany members of the heavily Irish-American Boston Police Department into strikingly varied corners of today’s Boston and its surrounding cities and towns.
At the center of the drama is a cop, Mac Flaherty, who used to be a different man. A man who hadn’t yet been to war.
Maureen Foley’s debut feature film, HOME BEFORE DARK, was named Best American Independent Film at the Hamptons International Film Festival, winning the Grand Jury Prize. Co-produced by Scout Productions, it was chosen to screen at many other international festivals including the Vancouver Film Festival and The International Festival ofWomen’s Cinema.AMERICAN WAKE, her second feature, co-written with Billy Smith, was recently acquired for worldwide distribution by Myriad Pictures.
Whether playing the iconic “Moe Reilly” in Showtime’s Brotherhood, the detective shadowing Martin Sheen in THE DEPARTED, or an FBI agent challenging Claire Danes in Showtime’s acclaimed new series, Homeland, Billy brings to his roles a unique authenticity rooted in real life experience in the US Marines, the Boston Police Department and the United Nations International Police Force.
Pitch piece available for screening online by contacting one of the following:
Maureen Foley [email protected] 617 868-6280 or 617 913-5938
Billy Smith [email protected]