Irish Film Board
Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board (IFB) is the national development agency for the Irish film industry investing in talent, creativity and enterprise. The agency supports and promotes the Irish film industry and the use of Ireland as a location for international production.
The Irish Film Board was set up in 1981 to boost the local industry. After the infamous closure of the Irish Film Board in 1987, Irish stories and filmmakers continued to break through with considerable international success ‘My Left Foot’ (Jim Sheridan), ‘The Crying Game’ (Neil Jordan), ‘The Commitments’ (Alan Parker) all made with non-Irish finance. The success of these projects coupled with intensive local lobbying led to the re-establishment of the Irish Film Board in 1993.
Many film critics point to the fact that the Irish Film Board's output has been poor, as most films which are chosen for funding do little or no business outside of the country, and are rarely popular in Ireland. However, IFB funded films like Intermission, I Went Down, Man About Dog, The Wind That Shakes The Barley and Adam & Paul have proved popular with domestic audiences and have all done respectable business in Irish cinemas. And both the Oscar-winning film Once and the Palme d'Or winner The Wind That Shakes the Barley have experienced international success over the last couple of years. Once which was made on a shoestring budget took over $10 million at the US box office and over $20 million in worldwide ticket sales while The Wind That Shakes the Barley was distributed theatrically in 40 territories worldwide.
Over the last four years Irish films have screened and won awards at the top international film festivals including Cannes, Sundance, Berlin, Toronto, Venice, London, Tribeca, Edinburgh and Pusan.
The Wind That Shakes The Barley won the prestigious Palme d'Or award for Best Film at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006, while Garage directed by Lenny Abrahamson picked up the CICEA Award at the Directors Fortnight at the festival in 2007. After winning the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007, Once went on to win the Best Foreign Film prize at the Independent Spirit Awards in 2008 and an Academy Award for Best Original Song. The Irish short film Six Shooter won the Academy Award for Best Short Film in 2006 while the short film New Boy was nominated for the same award in 2009.
In 2009 a record seven IFB funded films (Ondine, Perrier’s Bounty, Triage, A Shine of Rainbows, Eamon, Cracks and Colony) have officially been selected for the Toronto International Film Festival. However unlike Toronto, Irish film distributors are less reluctant to screen homegrown movies.
Tony Keily has criticised the board's insistence on funding "uncommercial commercial cinema". Paul Melia has also criticised the IFB over its slowness in awarding funding.
The Minister for Arts, Sports and Tourism Martin Cullen addressed the issue of commercial success recently saying that “The film board offers the chance to make films for a small audience and not necessarily for big commercial success but which have real quality. That offers opportunity to people who can go on to make their mark. Whether that is the actors, the director or crew, many of the people who work on those films wouldn’t go on to success unless they had been given their first chance here. People can only get experience by giving them the opportunity”.
Read more about this topic: Cinema Of Ireland
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