Jail break movie Maze filmed in Cork Prison
Jail break movie Maze filmed on location in Cork Prison in Ireland to tell the true story of a mass escape from Belfast’s infamous Maze facility in 1983.
By Nick Goundry 26 Sep 2017
Jail break movie Maze filmed on location in Cork Prison in Ireland to tell the true story of a mass escape from Belfast’s infamous Maze facility in 1983.
Her Majesty’s Prison Maze held Irish Republican Army paramilitaries during Northern Ireland’s Troubles from the early 1970s. Thirty-eight later managed to escape in the biggest single jailbreak of its kind in post-war Europe.
Stephen Burke’s low-budget movie was made as an Irish/Swedish co-production.
With the real Maze site partly demolished since its closure in 2000, Burke and his team initially planned to build a full prison set. This changed when Cork Prison suddenly became available as a filming location weeks before the shoot.
There were in fact still inmates in the prison when Burke and his team first visited to plan their filming schedule, the writer/director revealed in an interview with Irish Film and Television Network.
“Shooting in a real prison was a massive advantage,” said actor Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, who co-stars in the film.
“There was no need to imagine the feel of incarceration; the walls, the cells, all the history of a building like that hung in the air.”
While most of the movie was shot in Cork Prison, the individual cells were built as sets at Gothenburg Studios in Sweden for a few days of shooting.
“The move from Cork to Sweden to finish off the film was seamless, I thought,” said Martin McCann, another of the movie’s co-stars. “The Swedish crew had done a great job at recreating the prison within the Swedish studio. It was a very friendly atmosphere and they made our jobs easier.”
See KFTV's production profile for more on filming in Ireland.
Image: Ola Kjelbye
Stephen Burke’s low-budget movie was made as an Irish/Swedish co-production.
With the real Maze site partly demolished since its closure in 2000, Burke and his team initially planned to build a full prison set. This changed when Cork Prison suddenly became available as a filming location weeks before the shoot.
There were in fact still inmates in the prison when Burke and his team first visited to plan their filming schedule, the writer/director revealed in an interview with Irish Film and Television Network.
“Shooting in a real prison was a massive advantage,” said actor Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, who co-stars in the film.
“There was no need to imagine the feel of incarceration; the walls, the cells, all the history of a building like that hung in the air.”
While most of the movie was shot in Cork Prison, the individual cells were built as sets at Gothenburg Studios in Sweden for a few days of shooting.
“The move from Cork to Sweden to finish off the film was seamless, I thought,” said Martin McCann, another of the movie’s co-stars. “The Swedish crew had done a great job at recreating the prison within the Swedish studio. It was a very friendly atmosphere and they made our jobs easier.”
See KFTV's production profile for more on filming in Ireland.
Image: Ola Kjelbye
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