Patrick Kielty's new film Ballywalter to premiere in Belfast

A new film starring County Down-born comedian and presenter Patrick Kielty is to get its world premiere in Belfast on Thursday.

The drama Ballywalter is Kielty's first feature-film acting role.

It also stars Seána Kerslake, is directed by Prasanna Puwanarajah and is the opening film of the 2022 Belfast Film Festival.

The film was shot on a number of locations on the Ards Peninsula and in Belfast.

That includes Great Victoria Street, the Sunflower Pub, the Ulster Sports Club and the Empire Music Hall on Botanic Avenue.

The Empire was where Kielty began his stand-up comedy career in the 1990s.

Stand-up comedy also features in the plot of Ballywalter, which was shot in December 2020 and January 2021.

Kielty plays Shane, who is struggling after the breakdown of his marriage and tries to get his life back on track by enrolling on a 12-week stand-up comedy course.

He lives on the main street in Ballywalter on the Ards Peninsula, right beside the Irish Sea, and must take a taxi to Belfast to go to the course every Friday.

"When comedy is at its best, it's a kind of healing," the course tutor tells Shane and the other students.

Shane's taxi driver each week is cynical 20-something Eileen - played by Kerslake - who is disillusioned and unsure of her future after returning to Belfast from London.

Both are living in quiet despair, but as Eileen and Shane share the weekly 25-mile journey between Ballywalter and Belfast they find out more about each other and their friendship develops.

"Well, [did you] make anyone laugh?" Eileen asks Shane on one early journey.

"Not yet," Shane replies.

On a later journey, Eileen questions Shane about why he's taken up comedy.

"I don't know," he replies. "Challenge, do something that scares you, dance like no-one's watching you, etcetera - that's what the head doctors say."

Kielty recently told the US film and TV website Deadline that Shane and Eileen's relationship reflected a lot about Northern Ireland.

"There are so many moments where we haven't been led and we've had to lead ourselves," he told Deadline.

"A lot of that is at the heart of the film, which is about two people on their own who have to do it for themselves, and whether they can help themselves through it.

"In Northern Ireland today, people are surviving because of their relationships and friendships," he added.

"They're making their own future because no-one's actually helping them; no-one's actually leading them and the political world is letting them down," he said.

"This is a story of two people that actually didn't think they were going to make it, and ended up finding each other and realising that maybe they could," he added.

Although Kielty is best known as a comedian and presenter, he has also made a number of documentaries.

Ballywalter was written by the Belfast-born screenwriter Stacey Gregg whose previous film - the thriller Here Alone - received impressive reviews.

"For a long time as a screenwriter, it was incredibly hard to make material about Northern Ireland if it wasn't explicitly about the Troubles," she said,

"Now we are finally entering a really exciting period where people are ready to hear more of a diversity of voices."

The film marks Prasanna Puwanarajah's directing debut.

He is also a writer and actor who has appeared in a number of TV dramas and is set to play the former BBC reporter Martin Bashir in the new Netflix series of The Crown.

The premiere of Ballywalter takes place at Cineworld in Belfast on Thursday.