The publication this week of Film In Ireland The Role Of The Arts Council, the report conducted by the Scottish consultant Erika King at the request of the council, marks a welcome. if overdue, move in the right direction. Despite a steady increase in the financial resources it has allocated to film in recent years, the Arts Council has come under fire for its lethargic approach to policy issues in a fast-changing audio-visual environment, but Ms King's report addresses a broad range of topics including media education, film exhibition, critical debate, film festivals, north/south initiatives and film production awards, and suggests a much more interventionist approach in future.
Most attention will focus on the recommendations for supporting a more diverse nationwide cinema exhibition circuit, to which the council has already responded by establishing a Cinema Exhibition Fund, offering a number of fixed-term funding franchises to cinemas, arts centres, film societies and festivals. This scheme, which will operate on a pilot basis in 1998, will be followed by a feasibility study in association with the Irish Film Board to examine options for creating viable circuits to widen choice for cinema audiences throughout Ireland. It's a sensible step-by-step strategy which takes account of the importance of supporting a more diverse cinema culture, while acknowledging that caution is needed before undertaking any longer-term financial commitments.
Other sensible proposals include a reorganisation and clarification of the Council's Film and Video Awards to filmmakers, and a recommendation that responsibility for community film and video development at local level should be transferred to the Council's Local Arts Development Unit.
Some recommendations will be studied with interest by the council's largest client, the Film Institute of Ireland, which has been allocated £355,000 in grant aid for 1998 from the council's overall film budget of approximately £1 million. Since it opened the Irish Film Centre, the FII has been preoccupied with its own financial and structural problems, many of which now seem to have been resolved. "The FII is now emerging from a period of difficulty and is currently examining its own way ahead," the report states. "The Arts Council has already invested a great deal in getting the FII/IFC into its current stable position and it should now support its advance in a clearly sustainable way." One of the most potentially controversial recommendations is the suggestion that: "It would be mutually advantageous to both organisations, if the Dublin Film Festival and FII/IFC look at collaborative ventures, such as sharing resources and administrative costs." Such collaborations might seem to make some sense, but expect resistance from both sides to such a move - the IFC has always been reluctant to interfere with its regular commercial operations to facilitate the festival, and the DFF, currently at a low ebb, will fear a further downgrading of its status if it becomes identified as "just another" IFC event.
There is an implicit criticism in the statement that: "Clarification of the role of the Film Institute of Ireland in the critical debate about film is an essential element in future developments". In the absence of the FII from this critical debate, other groups have successfully moved to fill the gap; it's a remarkable fact that this country now supports two well-produced magazines, the bi-monthly Film Ireland and the quarterly Film West, published respectively by Film Base and the Galway Film Centre. Both of these publications have gradually developed from members' newsletters into nationally-distributed publications. "In the future, it is recommended that support to these organisations earmarks how much money is designated to the publications and what the money is for," the report remarks, implying some dissatisfaction with the current ad-hoc funding arrangements.
It will be interesting to see how quickly the council itself responds to the key recommendation that it should appoint a full-time Film Officer to implement these new policies, and whether the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands will take cognisance of the view expressed by many of those interviewed by Ms King as part of her research (though not specifically recommended in the report) that the new Council due to be appointed later this year should contain a member who represents film interests.
The Arts Council has already stated that it will move towards implementing many of the recommendations over the coming months, while the report will form the basis for discussion on film at the Planning for the Arts Consultative Forum to be held next Friday, May 8th, in the Grand Hotel, Malahide.
