Some excellent news has come the way of the National Film School (NFS). On Monday, Batt O’Keeffe TD, the Minister for Education and Science, confirmed that the Government is to fund the construction of a lavish new building for the school – currently part of the Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design Technology – at its Kill Avenue Campus.

Announcing the new project, O’Keeffe said that the “existing National Film School has produced a consistently high level of achievement for its student films nationally and internationally”.

Sure enough, 17 of the nominees for tomorrow's Irish Film and Television Awards are graduates of the school, and, just two weeks ago, further alumni were honoured at the Sundance Festival when Ken Wardrop's His & Herswon the World Cinema Cinematography Documentary award.

Donald Taylor Black, creative director of the institution, was delighted at the news. “It’s been in the planning for quite a number of years,” he said. “It’s good that this has happened in the middle of a recession.

It keeps everyone’s morale up. Also, it’s fitting that this comes 25 years after we first started teaching the art of film-making.”

If you want to get an idea of the material produced by the NFS, then check out the retrospective of graduates’ work at the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival tonight. The screenings kick off at 6.30pm in the IFI.