In our last issue we invited filmmakers and cinema commentators to contribute to the debate on the future of the Irish film Board's low and micro-budget initiatives, the responses we received are printed below. Also included is a speech given by Joe Comerford on the state of film culture in Ireland.

I welcome Mark Woods' remarks in the last issue of Film Ireland, as it is the first time that I have seen spelt out on paper the IFB/BSÉ's new policy with regard to marketplace involvement in low-budget filmmaking. Nowhere in the published guidelines is there such an emphasis on pre-sales and pre-production marketplace investment, and I ask the members of the Board whether this is indeed policy, and if so when will it be published in the guidelines? Woods has implicitly stated (and overtly demonstrated) that sales agents or other 'end-users' are now a prerequisite to IFB/BSÉ involvement in low-budget films. If such practise had been in place previously, few, if any, of the previous films funded under the Low-Budget Initiative would have been made. When was this change in Board policy decided and why?

There are several points in Woods' piece to which I would like to respond, but in the interest of brevity I will concentrate only on this one, that is, the IFB/BSÉ's emphasis on producers securing market money before the IFB/BSÉ will commit to production funding.

The full article is printed in Film Ireland 104.