Movie Opinion: Ireland of the Welcomes

This month sees Ireland assume two very different guises on the big screen. In Yann Demange’s thrilling ‘71, the red-brick streets of Belfast are transformed into an urban nightmare. In fact, the film was shot largely in London. In contrast, Dublin itself becomes an actor in Jimi: All Is By My Side , an atmospheric stand-in for ’60s London, with its smoky bars and slinky clubs.

Ireland is a versatile and popular filming location, for television especially. As Love/Hate, Ripper Street, Foyles War, Moone Boy and Quirke make clear, the country is now a Mecca for television directors. We have a wealth of talented writers, producers and actors – wonderful period architecture for historical projects; a landscape that offers both urban and rural settings within close (and therefore cost-effective) distance. And let’s not forget Section 481, our competitive tax incentive that’s catnip for foreign film producers.
Of course, the UK has a similar tax offering – and, combined with huge sound stages in Belfast and Britain, it’s conceivable that film producers may feel they’re getting a better deal in northern Ireland and England than in (the Republic of) Ireland.
This could explain why 75 per cent of our international filming projects are television, rather than film. Also, directors seem obsessed with the Irish – or should that be ‘Oirish’ – landscape. While features such as In The Name Of The Father, Bloody Sunday, Shadow Dancer, The Wind That Shakes The Barley and Jimmy’s Hall will always bring business, filmmakers requiring a ‘neutral’, modern settings may look elsewhere.
But perhaps perceptions are changing. Recent Daniel Radcliffe rom-com What If avoided familiar ‘diddly-eye’ pitfalls. Dublin was presented as just another modern city. There was none of the Irish ‘otherness’ – that dead weight of history and cliche – pressing down. Meanwhile, production and distribution companies like Element Pictures are brilliantly navigating both the domestic and international industry, with the aforementioned Ripper Street and Quirke. If this is a revolution, long may it continue.