Séamas McSwiney draws a bead on Irish film policy to date, and calls for more public debate in future.

Comfortable? Then, I'll Begin…
One upon a time, not so long ago, in a small northern European country (one of the Baltic States, if I remember) they were seeking new industries to underpin their economic development and, if possible, after years of cultural and economic domination by their oppressive neighbour, to project their re-found national identity. In the brainstorming that ensued, the obvious directions examined were the "grey-matter" industries such as information technology and pharmaceuticals, for they (correctly) perceived themselves to be an educated and resourceful people having the short-term comparative advantage of low labour costs, inexpensive real estate and the political will to implement a clement fiscal climate for foreign investment. Things looked good on paper. The flow charts made sense. Even the negative hypotheses looked positive.

Then, a troublesome minister with a literary background enquired about the national identity coefficient of a computer chip, the personality of a pill and, while a line of software may be perceived as brilliant, who cares where it came from? With an indulgence fuelled by the perspective of bright economic horizons, the others (who had already decided to perceive their administration as a free market corporate structure focusing strictly on the ubiquitous bottom line) cleverly designated this as PR, a worthy and necessary area of activity for an Enterprise State. This prerequisite satisfied, the question became a valid subject for debate. Well, at least to be discussed over lunch. So at lunch, exercising their trained capacity for lateral thinking and problem solving, they playfully began to examine their food, the layout of the table and the behaviour of the serving staff. They wondered how theses things might describe their identity and, inevitably, they also explored notions of loss of identity. Those who had taken philosophy with their politics in university began to reflect, out loud, on the frontier between the real, the artificial and the abstract and some, silently, remembered poems they had written, but never sent, to the dark-haired bright-eyed beauty on an exchange year abroad from somewhere sunnier. The regal history of their proud people was evoked, as was their more recent past as the persecuted province of a colonial power. The metaphors Cold War and Iron Curtain had a particular resonance for them, it was agreed. Still, unlike their morning session, they were coming up with more questions than answers and this was getting them down.

Now We're Talking
Then, to the relief of everyone, an economist proposed putting this identity projection problem in the framework of a comparative sector analysis. With this technocratic lunge, they were back on home ground. Very quickly it was realised that while they made very few films - only one or two a year- these were quite successful in their own small way. I was mentioned that an actor who had been recognised as talented was being offered work in international productions. Some people knew where he came from and that was judged to be useful. Artists are ambassadors. A number of film writers were also getting attention in Hollywood. And so on. When it was realised what a financial pittance this industry represented, how so little generated so much more, in global terms and in goodwill, it seemed obvious that investments should be made. After all, the amount of capital engineered by the fiscal and subsidy intervention for one medium sized chemical factory in a remote area would be enough to multiply by ten the resources available for film production. "Multiply by ten"! became the informal working slogan by the time coffee was served. This deliberate drive to create and economy of scale, a more efficient micro-economic infrastructure, would draw new people into the film industry, people that would not otherwise have considered it as a viable career option. But, said the minister who launched this improvised think tank in the first place, would these new people have the same creative ambition an artistic drive as those who were already toiling in such an under-resourced segment? How would money be distributed? To whom? Is there any guarantee that those successfully engaged in cinema today and who have been pleading or more recognition and help, will not be squeezed out by new blood with different priorities? They left the table realising that it was not as cut and dried as they thought and that in spite of the small amount of money required, a consultant would need to be sent in to look at it in greater detail, but that they would make a decision on how to intervene by the next budget.

But by the time that came around, the government had fallen due to unexplained KGB links on the part of the ruling party chairman and the promising actor was implicated in a cocaine investigation in America. The popular press had a field day and people said that they should make movies out of these stories… which was one of the reasons why the new government discreetly sidelined the whole issue and concentrated on more important things.

Meanwhile…
At around the same time, in Ireland, no such in-depth analysis and hand-wringing took place. In one fell swoop it was decided that we had the talent and the "unsolicited gift" of the English language. Our films would travel, protect our identity and make money. Let's just do it. So, almost out of the blue, when most had given up on the re-instatement of the Film Board after its untimely demise six or seven years earlier, lo and behold, it was back in business with a sixfold increase in budget. For good and bad reasons it was decided that it would live in Galway. And objective distance form Dublin, said some. A divorce from reality, groaned others. But, after years of relying on small stipends from the Media programme and the indulgence of lefty commissioning editors in London, there was such relief in the community that this (and other!) details seemed unimportant. Nor, in spite of the fact that most of the money financing IFB 2 came form an EU structural funding allocation, did there seem to be any need to reflect on our debt to Europe in all of this. Or, indeed, to further capitalise on this largesse for the experience available or the sheer size of their markets. The fact that many of our neighbours had more or less (usually less) successfully instigated national film policies didn't seem to be of interest when designing the mechanisms that would implement our own. We could study and consult and learn from their experiences maybe? Why bother. Let's just re-invent the wheel. In any case Hollywood is our touchstone, London our launch pad. But, what criteria should be used to determine we're succeeding or not? No time for that now, we'll make it up as we go along.

Almost simultaneously other - some would argue even more important - developments were taking place. Section 35, the tax shelter system, was perfected. This would both provide home-grown cash investment in film and also entice foreign productions to our shores.

Now, even if the Board could have been better conceived and even though the optimisation capacities of tax incentives is questionable, the IFB and Section 35 together ensured that more Irish films were made in the past ten years than in the previous hundred. However, this impressive statistic hides the unfortunate fact that not one of these films was a clear critical or commercial success…

Headscratching, Thinktanking and conundrums
…Last year, I helped out on what was the biggest ever retrospective of Irish cinema. It took place in Rennes and garnered little interest from Irish institution. Audiences are not high on our list of film strategy priorities. But that's not the point here. Leading up to this festival, I'd mention the event in conversation to acquaintances in the film profession from France and other European countries. Irish cinema, they'd say (after some knowing grins and complicit winks about our nifty little tax system) metaphorically scratching their heads looking for film references. Three titles came out: My Left Foot, The Crying Game and In the Name of the Father. Three films that were made when almost nothing was available in the way of public incentives for Irish cinema. All three made a deserved mark on Oscar nomination lists. Is this a paradoxical argument against public funding? I hope not. Maybe we're just picking the wrong projects. Maybe that's it.

On the other hand, from the plethora of film companies to the hundreds of young people studying filmmaking, there undeniably exists an infrastructure. In spite of the failure to make films that have an impact, films that succeed, people are making a living and producers are making profits.

As time went by a special Think Tank was set up and, over the space of a year, a hand-picked collection of important people were to devise a strategy for Irish cinema to carry us up to the year 2010. But instead of really discussing things and coming up with new ideas, it stuck to safety strategy of preserving the fledgling status quo that existed in the new industry; after all everyone in this group was either a confirmed or tentative member of this informal fraternity. When the repost was finally published, creativity and innovation were conspicuously absent. It was obvious that they had had only two objectives: first ad foremost, the prolongation of the tax shelter scheme and, secondly, significantly increasing the level of selective funding available through the film Board.

This, unfortunately, made it an industry lobby rather than source of new ideas. Articulate people refrained from making elementary criticisms of the current system for fear of endangering the implicit twin objectives clear to everybody. The imperfections glossed over, their roots grew deeper. More synergistic possibilities and organically integrational needs were quite simply ignored. Folks just didn't look at the big picture. But they did succeed in their enterprise. Section 35 had its wings clipped only slightly and was renamed Section 481. The Board was promised large increases scaled over a few years. As regards the latter improvement it has, and this is a mystery to almost everyone, accompanied a marked decrease in number of Irish films available (showable?) in the marketplace. Never in the past ten years have I seen such a dearth of Irish films in the markets of Berlin, Cannes and elsewhere as in the past two. This year there were three in Berlin, two of which were really British and the same three plus one in Cannes. Nothing seemed to be happening. Yet there is more direct public money available now than ever before for production. More means less? Go figure.

Maybe one of the minor reasons for this is that all of the talent in the island was drained into one tax-incentive driven financial behemoth of a movie, a production with dragon-like proportions the lie of which had never before been seen in Ireland. Reign of Fire was the service industry movie to beat all the others into a cocked hat. The fact that the film itself was utter shite seemed to diminish not a whit this observation. Bigger is better. Show me the GDP impact.

The Long Way Home
In this same year two Irish films scored gold in Berlin and Venice. Well, the subjects were quintessentially Irish and their locations too (A civil rights march and a convent!). Both told compelling and true stories of our recent history, facets of our identity, if you like. However, these films' real nationality, in the sense of their initiative, funding and creative team, was British. Maybe these subjects were too close to us to do ourselves. The English and Scots are better at picking Irish winners? Or something.

Another brace of good things also happened at infrastructure level this year to alleviate the dearth of home-grown motion pictures and their distribution. The first was the announcement of a couple of new low-budged finance initiatives via the Film Board which, on paper at least, would seem to be a good recipe for emerging filmmakers hungry to prove themselves. Or maybe the system will corrupt this pure idea too. More than one commentator, while complimenting, as I do now, the ambition of such a mechanism, has asked the question begged: why did it take ten years to come up with such a simple and obvious idea? A pressing need to have something to show, perhaps?

The other initiative was also tardy in its manifestation. There is finally a push to have an arthouse/independent cinema in Galway, the designated hometown of the Irish industry. To justify this relocation of ten years ago, why had nobody among those who lobbied for the Film Board's domicile in the city of tribes ever thought that it might be a good thing to do to have a cinema which might be susceptible, among other films, to show what the IFB engendered? And by extension bring our film community into contact with its own public? People who go to the pictures. The audience.

The Galway Film Fleadh is the annual Irish industry love-in. This year, apparently by accident, it offered the spectacle. Of initiating a debate as to whether it was advisable or not to criticise the Board in the sense that to do so was to compromise future financing possibilities. Constructive criticism has at least been clamped for this reason, leaving the field open to flakier opponents who are all too obviously indulging in sour grapes for the rejection of their personal projects. This skewed state of affairs is yet another reason to consider the notion of automatic funding mechanisms. There is a problem. The lack of box-office success and critical acclaim for Irish films cannot be just a case of ten years' bad luck. Perhaps next year's Fleadh should have a full day's public debate on the state of things. Not just another PR exercise, but announced well in advance so that the subject is well prepared, discussed and structured beforehand, here in Film Ireland and elsewhere. A more democratic sort of Think Tank maybe. Any suggestions…? (Anonymity respected).

This article was printed in Film Ireland 90 (Jan/Feb 2003)