The Dublin Film Festival is still in need of a major sponsor, the absence of which has put some considerable strain on its finances, and still finds itself without a Programming Director, despite having advertised the position four months ago. With the Toronto Film Festival (traditionally the chief opportunity to view potential titles for Dublin) currently in full swing, the situation might seem critical, but Festival Director Aine O'Halloran insists that there are several people at Toronto who will provide some consultative input into next year's Dublin programme. "Toronto's not the end of the world, and we now have extra time to finalise our programme," she says.
The festival will take place some six weeks later than its traditional calendar slot of early March. Next year's festival will run from April 15th to April 25th, running over two weekends for the first time, which presumably will help to boost receipts at the box office. "We find that it's much easier to secure venues in April than in March, which has become a very big month for exhibitors," says Ms O'Halloran, explaining the decision, which also helps the festival avoid the accommodation problems in the city caused by rugby fixtures and St Patrick's Day.
Finding suitable venues was a serious problem for this year's festival following the loss of exclusive access to the Screen on D'Olier Street, and Ms O'Halloran is currently in negotiations with a city centre exhibitor to solve the problem. She also points to the difficulty of getting major stars or directors to commit to Dublin in the middle of the increasingly lengthy "Oscar season", citing Julie Christie as one guest who couldn't make it to Dublin this year because of pre-Oscar duties in Los Angeles. The new dates will make it possible to draw more extensively on titles premiered at the Sundance Festival in January, she believes, and also hopes that it may help in attracting more new Irish films - several major Irish premieres have been lost to the Festival in recent years because producers were waiting until the end of March to see if their productions had been accepted in competition at Cannes.
