Two film production companies started work on two different versions of Galway writer Ken Bruen’s The Guards in Galway this week.

Coincidentally, locally based production company, Magma and Elemental Pictures in Dublin started filming on Tuesday. The former is a TFF pilot called Jack Taylor – The Guard based on one of the seven novels in the Jack Taylor series.

filming started in Roscam on outdoor side of the road scenes on a damp and drizzly morning and moved to the more glamourous location of the g hotel yesterday morning.

The 90 minute pilot is co-financed by German broadcaster RTL, Richard price TFF Associates UK, The Media fund and Magma Films, Ireland.

It stars Iain Glen of Resident Evil and Tomb Raider as Jack, with Tara Breathnach of The Tudors and Ros na Run and Nora Jane Noone of The Magdalene Sisters as the female leads.

The script was adapted from the novel by Anne McCabe, Tom Collins and Ralph Christians of Magma. The producers are Clodagh Freeman and Ralph Christians.

The Guards - which won a prestigious Shamus crime writing award for Bruen - is a darkly compelling mystery about the Ireland of today which uncovers Galway City’s seedy underbelly. Jack is asked to find a distraught mother’s missing daughter and he finds more than he bargained for.

Taylor is something of a character himself - a disgraced ex-cop who was thrown off the force after assaulting a politician. Now operating as a private eye, he is equally committed to his drinking as his work.

The other film production is a feature film also based on the same ken Bruen book, again set in Galway and starring award winning actor Brendan Gleeson.

However, the company behind this second production was not in a position yesterday to reveal any more details about their production, which also started shooting on Tuesday.