Lelia Doolan, Chairwoman of the Film Board, talks to Johnny Gogan about politics and procedures, and the future for Irish filmmakers.

Johnny: Lelia, the Board is up and running. Can you give us an idea what the state of play is at present?

Lelia: Yes, we had our first formal meeting at the ned of June and we just sat down to try to discuss policy because the submissions had only just arrived. We decided to put them off until everybody had a chance to read them. So we had the first meeting at the end of June in Galway, then a second meeting in July and the outcom of that is known now. So far we've offered 15 loans to development projects and we have provided for five production projects for which we have set aside the funds; obviously we have got to do the negotiations because as you know there are various considerations that we have to keep in mind when making loans.

What is the procedure when people send projects to the Film Board? Is that establised now? I know that a Chief Executive is yet to be appointed.

I am the chief executive at the moment! The procedure is that submissions come in by a certain day; they are then sent to readers who are not on the Board; they provide reports. I read all the submissions and reports, I make a selection and then the Board reads everything that I have put forward, together with anything else from the submission list that they wish to see. Then, on the basis of their reading and consideration of those, funding decisions are made.

The current awards have been for development and production finance for feature. Is the Board going to have a broader remit in terms of responsibility for Ireland's involvement in Eurimages and in marketing? I believe that it has been agreed that the Board will pay Ireland's membership to the new English Language Cinema Plan. Is this correct?

The Board does have objectives, which are set down. As far as the applications coming in from here are concerned, these are for development and production, first of all in the feature/fiction area, and we will not be excluding documentaries of exceptional quality. The question of short films and animation is really yet to be decided. There was such a large number of applications that we felt, for this year, perhaps we would keep to fiction and documentary.

With Eurimages, yes, the Board is responsible for half the payment this year. RTÉ is responsible for half as well. I think the intention is that the Board will be totally responsible for Eurimages. As far as the English Language Cinema Plan is concerned that's still being talked about. I don't know what the outcome of that is likely to be, but certainly I think it's possible that if it looks like something that would be of advantage to Irish filmmakers we'll try and be involved in it.

What about organisational funding, which at present rests with the Arts Council?

Well I don't want to get into anybody else's territory. The Arts Council has, through its film budget, been supporting a lot of organisations like Galway Film Centre, Film Base and agencies of that kind. I have to say that I am hoping this will continue. It may change a small bit in its emphasis, but I'm certainly hoping that the funding of festivals will continue to occur through the Arts Council, and that the Film and Video Awards will continue, but perhaps with a different kind of angle.

And how about marketing, which is presently with An Bord Trachtála?

Well one of the suggestions, if you remember, in the Taoiseach's Working Party Report was the establishment of a support committee. I don't think that the statutory second tier, in the way in which it was put forward there, is now envisaged. But what we have been discussing and what we will be able to put into practice – in fact there is a commitment to do so now – is to have a partnership with the semi state bodies, so that where there is expertise and advice and support available through the IDA, An Bord Trachtála, RTÉ, the Arts Council , and FAS, that the Department of the Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht would have a role in providing support structures for Irish film and Irish filmmakers. We have already started informal talks. The idea is to put that committee on a formal basis and have meetings every two months so that films which are going into production, which are going to be in need of all kinds of opportunities (to be at markets for example) can show their face, get chances at distribution, and so that the development and training of technical and artistic people can be looked after.

I ask about the Ancillary areas because of the fairly strict economic brief which the Minister [Michael D Higgins] has laid out for the Board: it has to deliver on jobs and production. However these ancillary areas, which are not strictly remunerative in terms of production, could have an adverse affect on the financial performance of the Board. For example, paying for Ireland's membership of Eurimages – the benefit of that might not show up when the audit is done, as Michael D says, after five years.

Well, there is going to be an audit, as far as I know, after two years. And we'll be keeping an audit on a regular basis ourselves. But one of the good things, I suppose, about the return of the Board is that it marks a recognition of the fact that filmaking in Ireland by Irish people creates jobs, and that it adds money to the economy. That's a bit of a breakthrough and I would certainly pary a tribute to the Coopers & Lybrand Report and the Film Makers Ireland (FMI) Report on broadcasting in this respect. The Coopers & Lybrand Report did provide facts and figures to create a solid basis for helping the government to understand that this is a labour intensive activity and that it brings money into the country, that it keeps jobs going, and that it adds to services and facilities and all of the activity that goes to get a film made.

So that's one thing, but obviously the really crunch issue with the Film Board the last time around appears to have been the actual recoupment, as it's called, of the monies which were loaned. Now I think in fact that the first incarnation of the Board actually performed well. Given the amount of money they laid out, which was about £2.5 million over the five years, £0.25 million and more has come back into the Board. The interesting thing about film is that there is a continuing trickle of money coming back. I am hoping that this new incarnation of the Board represents an understanding that filmmaking and its continuity of production here involves a long-term view.

In the first instance we will of course be looking at the jobs, at the fact that production is happening here and that money is being spent here on the films that get made, but we are going to do our utmost to ensure that the payback to the Board is as solidly based as it can be and that the Board recoups its money, with profit if possible. Because, in the end of it all, people who are making films want to come back again. Therefore they want to perform as well as they possibly can. I think the notion that Irish filmmakers are somehow idealistic artists is just a fantasy. Everybody wants to get their films seen, people aren't making films to look at in their own basements. They want audiences and I think the intervening period when the Board was in exile gave an opportunity to filmmakers – perhaps also because of the MEDIA Programme – to take the financial, co-production and sales aspects quite seriously.

What we are going to try to do with each production we become involved in, is to provide the production manager or production office with a form that would enable them to tabulate – in some visible way – the employment and the money being spent here. This would give us an opportunity to include that in our annual report so that we are able to keep tabs on what we are doing, what we are spending and let everybody see what is happening.

So, do you see the Board as actually having a more focused approach in terms of concentrating on development and production rather than the ancillary areas?

Yes, in the first instance I absolutely do because I think that's what we need to do – get films into production. It's important that the films that do get into production have a realistic sales strategy and I think that people are realistic about that and are becoming more and more so.

The wole industrial relations aspect of filmmaking has been a big question in the past for filmmakers. The current FMI agreement has now lapsed, as far as I know, so this is a very open time in terms of the future of the relationship between unions and producers. Is the Board going to become involved in this area?

I have said an initial hello to the unions and got a very cheerful response! In terms of the Special Projects idea, which I think is an interesting one and one in which I hope low budget filmmakers are going to be able to participate, I welcome a new atmosphere of flexibility.

There is a feeling about the Special Projects, that they tend to marginalise the low budget film within the spectrum of production.

Maybe Special Projects is the wrong name. I don't see why people who want to make low budget films have to be regarded as anything lesser than people who want to make big budget films. There are peole who believe that spending as little as is acceptable and right so that people can earn a living is a very sensible way to go about filmmaking. Obviously some films, because of the scope of the production, need more money. But I, frankly, am mean-minded about budgets in general and I wouldn't like to think tha the term Special Projects is going to mean a lower or lesser class of work because I wouldn't accept that.

In so far as the unions are concerned, like everybody else they are going to have to find a way to live with the new reality, with the fact that there is now a semi state organisation which is concerned primarily with ensuring that there is a continuity of filmmaking activity in this country. For that reason we and the unions need to work together to make things happen. I think there is an openness to that. There is on my part, but there are some knotty problems, of course, to be undone. I do want the Board to be part of a process of educating us all as to what is really happening and how much money people actually need in a wage packet at the end of the week to make their lives worth living and to make going on working in the film business worth doing.

How about other aspects such as distribution, say distribution of films within Ireland?

One of the things that strikes me is that the New Zealand Film Commission, which works in the same kind of environment as we have, has been very successful but now sees the need for New Zealanders themselves to have more of a chance to see New Zealand films. I think that with regional cinemas and also perhaps, with an initiative which we are trying to explore with RTÉ, we might have seasons of Irish films on television and in cinemas where the Board and RTÉ and perhaps one or two players in Ireland could participate in the financing. The fact that there is now a commissioning editor in RTÉ should help towards that kind of thing, together with extra money that hopefully will be available for independents there.

The first call for submission from filmmakers to the new Board mentioned that the Board would be able to invest loan equity of approximately 10%. It was generally felt that this was a very low percentage, and it seems to favour the larger scale production rather than the lower budget.

It isn't intended to do that and as you rightly point out the word approximate was attached to the guide. It was an indication. We have a million pounds to spend this year only. If you have a budget of £4 million and you want 10% of that it's an awful lot of money. Obviously for somebody who has a budget of £400,000, £40,000 isn't a huge initial impetus. But I certainly think that we will look at things project by project. That's the idea and people who are on lower budgets have made a case that there ought to be a higher percentage in those cases. I think that's something that's intelligent to take on board, but I don't want to say anything more than that at the moment. We're trying to housekeep, we're trying to make very pound go as far as it can and also to make sure that people will get their films made. So sometimes it isn't only the money that you can put in, it's also the connections you can help to make.

Perhaps a sliding scale – which has been suggested – might operate in the future?

I suppose I don't want to get myself pinned down to something, but as I say there is nothing that can't be changed if the circumstances require it. Our purpose is to encourage talent and to get films made and if we see it's necessary, therefore, to go a bit beyond, then that's what we'll do.

And the status of the money is loan/equity rather than grants?

Yes. I think everybody is used to the fact that development money gets paid back on the first day of principal photography and that production money gets paid back by way of loan or a stake in territories. I think filmmakers are quite realistic. I don't think anyone is looking for a hand out, and I think that's something that people who are in the filmmaking world in Ireland would be happy to have recognised – that this is a legitimate and a necessary and a vital part of Irish cultural life, and that it's a business as well.

Low budget film in the past has been seen as non comercial, so do you think the Board is actually challenging that notion? A lot of the debates in the past five years tend to have been about film as either business or art.

Someone mentioned this to me today and asked is the Board going to have a cultural remit or a commercial remit, and I said I don't accept those categories. I don't believe that there's anything in a filmmaker's heart other than getting an audience to look at his or her film, and that means people are going to pay money to go in.

So you are talking about an art form which pushes itself through an industrial system and that is the way it is, it is neither one nor the other. If we don't pay attention to the fact that we are Irish people, that we live in a particular world here, that we have a particular way of looking at it and that we have particular stories to tell – I know this gets used again and again – but if we don't pay attention that I just don't feel that the universality of our experience is going to travel. You can look at all the works that became formulae within the American studio system and almost all of them came from small European filmmakers. You can probably reel them off yourself – the work of De Sica, the early work of Truffaut and Godard. There's a whole range of work which appeared to be small and interesting but was rooted in something that had an appeal universally.

I think everyone was surprised when the Board was located in Galway, what do you see as the significance of the Board being in Galway, as the Minister only mentioned it as being part of the Government's regional policy? Does it have any other significance?

Yes, you can get the broadminded reflective answer or you can have the quick response. I was delighted that it was in Galway, it seemed to me to be a gesture of solidarity with the regions without being too inconvenient to filmmakers. Film is a fairly peripathetic kind of activity, people come and go a lot. There was a question of whether filmmakers would be able to drop in. Well, my experience is that with CIE they are able to drop in and I am able to drop up here. But as far as regional policy generally is concerned, I suppose people in the regions have taken the train so many times that it gives you a certain happiness to think that others might take the train to you!

On the other hand I do think – and this is the serious part – that this is a real initiative to bring life into the regions. The amount of artistic ventures from the regions that have become national institutions is quite sizable. Galway's a case in point. I think that it is only right that it should be recognised and that the people who live in those places should have the same access, or as near as possible, to art, to experience, to enjoyment and entertainment, as do peple in Dublin – that is a healthy vision to have.

I think Michael D Higgins has a very clear idea of what he hopes and wants to do and the effects of his, dar I say, global plans and ideas are going to be seen little by little in a continuing way. It makes sense not only because Teilifís na Gaeltachta or na Gaeilge will be located within the Galway Gaeltacht. It also makes sense because filmmaking has become a quite important activity in and aroun Galway through the Galway Film Centre. I think a tremendous number of production companies currently based in Dublin may find – and there is some evidence that they are brushing up their Irish like fury at the moment – that the fax and the telephone work equally well in theWest, or the South, or Ulster and that it's a good place to be in. Shannon Airport is one hour away, you can go anywhere you like pretty well and therefore it seems to me to make huge cultural as well as geographical sense.

The Film Board has been given five years at least, where would you like to be in five years time?

Well, actually, I'd like to be in the garden digging a few spuds, if possible, a few years before that! Hopefully we'll get a really energetic chief executive. As you know we have advertised and we will be having the interviews and hope to make appointments by September, so, as far as the Film Board itself goes, I hope that it will be a vibrant and continuing encourager and stimulator and struggler for Irish film. Precisely what the shape of it will be in five years time I don't know. If we are successful and we manage to get maybe four to six films made a year, maybe a bit more, if we can keep the inputs going, then I would see the inroads we have already made in drawing attention to Ireland and its eloquence, in getting new forms going forward in whatever way, experimentally, culturally, politically – every way. It's a living art form and it's a crucially important art form and one I just hope will keep going.

And of course, it's an ephemeral art form. I hope we'll keep a sense of proportion.

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The Film Board Charter

Bord Scannán na hÉireann is established:

• to promote the creative and commercial elements of Irish filmmaking and film culture for a home and international audience. It is intended each year that the Film Board will support a number of film projects in development and will also provide finance by way of debt/equity for a selected number of films
• to encourage the development and training of technical, artistic and production grades as a means of improving the overall skills proficiency within the industry
• to assist in the promotion and marketing of Irish films within Ireland and abroad as a means of stimulating an interest in Ireland, Irish culture and Irish films
• to develop and maintain a working partnership with state and semi state agencies in order to achieve these aims.

This article was printed in Film Ireland 36 (Aug/Sep 1993).