Sir, - Contrary to Michael Foley's report of August 29th, Criminal Affairs was not "inexplicably chosen" to screen at the Galway Film Fleadh. It was entered at the request of its Irish director, Jeremiah Cullinane, who was anxious that his work be seen by his home audience. Roger Corman has started the career of many notable directors, and it seemed very relevant and appropriate to screen the first work of the first Irish Corman Director as part of a broad programme of 12 new Irish and Irish-made feature films, reflecting the full range of Irish film-making.
As Corman's Concorde Anois studios have produced some eight of their own features and facilitated Tommy McArdle's film Angela Mooney Dies Again, a co-production with Merlin Films and RTE, their output and level of employment (leaving aside industrial relations issues) is of some significance.
The Galway Film Fleadh is a filmmakers' festival, and the key interaction is between filmmakers and their audiences, a resonance that vibrates through common culture and memory. Audiences are invited to "enjoy, appreciate, rage and rejoice", and debate is lively and vocal.
In the Irish context, the Corman studios, supported by many State and semi-State bodies, and encouraged by several industry luminaries, can be either viewed as an industrial activity, exporting unseen from some kind of limbo zone, or as most of film-making is, a cultural activity, which has to integrate and react to indigenous ideas, people and setting.
It is thus entirely appropriate that an Irish audience should have an opportunity to view and react to a movie such as Criminal Affairs. In fact it is predictably a relatively lacklustre B-movie that shows emerging flair, but demonstrates hopelessly mishandled sexual politics.
While the fleadh in no way endorses such attitudes, and is not a deliverer of cultural imprimaturs, it is precisely the reaction and debate within the film community that should be encouraged and welcomed if the country is to host studios such as Concorde Anois, whose key mission statement, that has recommended state assistance, is to give opportunities and to train new Irish talent. - Yours, etc., ANTONY SELLERS, Programme Director, Galway Film Fleadh,
Monivea Road,
Galway.