It’s a proud day for Ireland as two of its native sons, Hollywood actors Jamie Dornan and Conor MacNeill, launch the feature and television production entity Blackthorn Films.

The new venture will be based in the northern region of the country, where Dornan and MacNeill were born and raised. They met on the 2015 film “The Siege of Jadotville,” and have since co-starred in projects including “The Tourist,” “The Fall” and the Oscar-winning “Belfast.”

At launch, the pair hired producer Shauna Shivers-McAtamney to oversee Blackthorn’s film and TV slate. The company is a recent recipient of the BBC’s TV Small Indie Fund, which supports the growth of grassroots production shops across the U.K.

“Blackthorn films was born out of a shared desire to create indigenous stories from the island of Ireland that have a true global reach. The company’s aim is to produce work that flips...