"This meeting deplores the abolition of Bord Scannan Na hEirenn, the Irish Film Board. It demands the reinstatement of an independent statutory body which will have in its charge to finance the development, production and marketing of indigenous Irish film.
"The meeting welcomes the government's initiative in providing a tax structure for the Irish film industry.
"It insists that an independent statutory body similar to the Film Board is necessary for Irish filmmakers to take advantage of that tax structure and to ensure its success".

This motion came at the end of a meeting held on Wednesday 21st July held in the Irish Film Institute and attended by 120 members of the Guild, Filmbase, the A.I.F.M. and the Institute, chaired by David Kavanagh of the I.F.I. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss a response to the closure of Bord Scannan, the Irish Film Board, announced by the Taoiseach on 26th June, a few days after the announcement of the new tax deal for film in the forthcoming Finance Act; the suggestion being that the deal would substitute for the work of the Film Board.

The tenor of the meeting was very much how to go about conveying to the Taoiseach the necessity of rectifying the major mistake that had been made in abolishing the board, without causing the embarassment which politicians so obviously loathe.

Tiernan McBride wanted to counteract the allegations that the Board had squandered money on administration. The figure for 1984 and 1985 was about 20% of total budget and of course would have represented far less if John Boorman had not given back half of his budget to the Civil Servants in his first year as Chairman, thus condemning future Boards to a similar fate. He also spoke of "behind the scenes" murmurings of the civil servants in the Department of the Taoiseach that a mistake had been made and that there was a need to put something in place to fulfill many of the Board's functions. It was therefore necessary in the ensuing months to keep up the pressure and to let them know of as many of these functions as possible. However, to pass these functions to the Arts Council, despite its stated responsibility for "the cinema" would be contradiction: business could not be expected to go for an Arts Council project.

Michael Algar, chief executive of Bord Scannan said that the Department of the Taoiseach had been notified of all commitments made by the board. However, civil servants were looking for loopholes to avoid these. He was critical of the silence of all but a few in the industry. There were now many more people involved in filmmaking than before the establishment of and due in part to, the Film Board. Such opportunities of concerted action were rare, so the industry must decide there and then what it wanted. Foreign festival organisers who had screened Irish film in the past and similar state bodies in other countries had been canvassed for support and this should be forthcoming.

Pat Murphy read out a letter to the Taoiseach which had been circulated to and signed by many in the industry (with a few notable exceptions). Drafted by an ad hoc committee of largely Filmbase members, it points out that the government's investment scheme "relates only to production finance, it will be virtually useless to all but a few Irish filmmakers... (without a body similar to the Board)".

Nor could the ad hoc committee see how the Arts Council could fulfill this function. Similarly the suggestion from some elements in the industry to establish a "private film board" funded and administered by the industry, was a non-starter: it would not fulfill training needs or deal with any project that was not strictly commercial.

Speaking of the Filmbase directors, Pat called for the establishment of an independent film board more representative of filmmakers with the following new sources of funding:
• £250,000 promised to the abolished board from the Lottery.
• a levy on cinema seats: 5p on every seat could be estimated to yield up to £500,000
• a tax on the purchase of blank video cassettes.

Liam O'Leary called for the re-instatement of the Film Board and, exasperated at the virtual silence that has met its closure, urged people to "get up off your bourgeois arses". If this had happened in France or any other country the people would be protesting in the streets.

Other contributions criticised the stupidity of the government for pouring money into educating people in film and video if the only option left on graduation was to emigrate. It was suggested that responsibility for film should be switched back to the Department of Industry and Commerce where there was more capital for state investment in industry. It was agreed that the ad hoc committee be formalised into an Action Committee more representative of the various aspects of the industry. Submissions should be made on possible lines of action within two weeks, and then a similar general meeting should be called.

It was unclear as to whether all the members of the Film Board has received a copy of the ad hoc committee's letter, but to date only two had signed.

Johnny Gogan

This article was printed in Film Base News 2 (Jul/Aug 1987).