A Shetland production company is in the frame to produce a £2m feature in a consortium with IndyUK film distributors and Alchemist Films. The shoot is scheduled to take place before February of next year.

The Shetland company, Penultimate, says Shetland is the preferred location for the film’s director Stuart St Paul, but other locations being considered are in Ireland and Australia. St Paul’s last low budget independent feature was a costume drama The Scarlet Tunic which proved popular with British cinema audiences.

The Shetland film’s story requires a background of a tough environment, where living is a challenge. Shetland can certainly provide that. The islands lie for to the north of the UK mainland, 200 miles from both Scotland’s oil capital of Aberdeen and Bergen, in Norway.

The islands have the same mean temperatures as London, but in winter are regularly whipped by gales and winds of up to hurricane force, which produces a substantial amount of wind chill.

The last time a feature film was made in Shetland was 1936, when Michael Powell’s classic Edge Of The World was filmed on the Shetland island of Foula. The film was recently praised by Scorsese, who admires Powell’s work. Edge of The World was also set in an isolated, wind-swept island community.