Paul Cullen's article about the Irish Film Centre on August 29th, 1997 contained a number of serious inaccuracies. Neither of the Irish Film Centre's two cinemas is supported by Arts Council or any other subvention. This is official policy, and Paul Cullen is not the first person to misrepresent the situation. No Irish cinema pays classification fees to the Censors Office; this is undertaken by distributors. The Film Institute of Ireland is no longer the recipient of the third largest Arts Council grant. Taxpayers, through the Arts Council, provide approximately 20 per cent of annual turnover and this contributes to the ongoing cultural activities of the Film Institute of Ireland. The case for financial subsidy should be obvious, given its responsibility for the Film Centre, the Irish Film Archive, an active Education Department, Library and Information Centre, and housing within its walls a number of important independent film organisations. Paul Cullen seems to view the Irish Film Centre only in terms of the two cinemas.
I would like to use this opportunity to explain how the annual Arts Council subvention to the Film Institute of Ireland is spent. The Irish Film Archive is unique. It is the national collection of film, magnetic tape, stills and related material. Film preservation is extremely expensive, and essential conservation work is on-going. Archive staff are engaged in acquisition, cataloguing and providing access to researchers, academics, and film and television programme makers. The archive also services non-competitive film festivals worldwide on behalf of Irish film-makers. In recent years it has sent a selection of Irish film to places as far afield as Japan, Russia, United States, Australia and many European countries.
This year alone, the small group of dedicated staff in our Education Department has organised screenings, seminars and workshops for literally thousands of school-going students and in-service training for teachers; a Careers in Film Day supported by a publication; evening courses for adults; projects with Macra na Feirme, Focus Point, Age & Opportunity and a number of Gaelscoileanna. This is by no means an exhaustive list. Let me highlight just a small number of films and seasons, repertory and festivals which were screened during the programming period from which Paul Cullen plucked just two which he personally did not like. For audiences searching for non-English language movies we had French, Finnish, Japanese and Norwegian seasons. Powerful and political, The Battle of Algiers was moving viewing in a year which has seen heartbreaking events unfold in that country. New releases included David Lynch's Lost Highway and Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter. Paul Cullen appears ignorant of the fact that the entire August holiday weekend was devoted to the fifth Lesbian & Gay Film Festival. While he may not have had an interest in any of the films screened, his fellow citizens who attended the festival in their hundreds obviously felt differently. Before the end of the year, we will have a short focus on Indian film as part of their 50th year of independence celebrations. We will host the French Film Festival for the first time and an expanded Women's Film Festival and we will also host an Andy Warhol season.
Annual membership for the Irish Film Centre is still a modest £10 (£7.50 concessions). Members are entitled to the cheapest cinema tickets in Dublin, and a regular, mailed programme. In excess of 8,000 annual members and hundreds of weekly members obviously find this a very good deal.
The IFC celebrates its fifth birthday on Saturday September 20th, 1997 with a entire day of free screenings which provide a microcosm of our usual cinema's programme: the Von Stroheim silent classic Greed and a beautiful new print of the French Betty Blue; Goodfellas and Pulp Fiction, in response to huge demand from our members, whose opinion has been canvassed for the occasion; an Archive presentation of original Lumiere and Promio film shot in Ireland during the early years of cinema and a new Irish low-budget feature; Babe for young people, Chen Kaige's Temptress Moon as a sneak preview and the triumphant return of the exceptional documentary When We Were Kings.
We offer a range of programmes and shared experiences which enrich people's lives in a way that is unique to film, a truly accessible and democratic artform. This is our passion and we want to share it. We all have a stake in the Irish Film Centre.
Sheila Pratschke and Paul Cullen will debate the success of the IFC on the Face To Face programme on Anna Livia Radio tonight at 6.30 p.m.
