Calling the Shots

Tony Keily talks to Trish McAdam of the Screen Directors' Guild of Ireland about the inception of the SDGI and the drafting of the Dublin Declaration, a code of practice for directors.

Tony Keily: Where did the impetus for the Declaration come from?

Trist McAdam: The Film Board had given some research funding to look into an organisation for Directors in Ireland and Catherine Punch had been taken on as researcher. In the middle of researching we heard of a planned international meeting of English-speaking directors in LA, so Catherine and I went along as observers. The organisations at the table were the same ones that eventually signed the Dublin Declaration. Something that really struck me at that meeting was the spirit of co-operation, people looking for common ground rather than for difference. There was a general sense that directors around the world were having problems with the balance of the creative and the financial in film, a division which is always going to exist. Directors very much recognise the notion that there is a need for collaboration between the financial and artistic elements in filmmaking. But it is collaboration; one cannot be allow to dominate the other. If you are going to do your best work you need a space in which you can achieve some artistic goals, inspire other people and have the time to do what you need to do without being constantly reminded of market forces and audiences. There is a place and a time for that.

So when the meeting in Dublin was arranged the idea was that we would look at a summary of the comparative studies and try to put down something on paper that would say 'this is basically what all the directors guilds have in common. We can all say that this is how the director should be working in any of the territories'.

The full article is printed in Film Ireland 96