The butcher boy

In Ireland today the film industry is growing rapidly and employing thousands of people every year. It brings in 8% of all the tourists who visit this country. It attracts an average of €136 million annually through foreign investment. What’s more it has the potential to triple in size by 2010, employing 11,000 people directly and contributing €500 million in local expenditure per year.

But guess what? Minister John O’Donoghue (pictured) has just decided to cut all incentives to encourage foreign or local investment in this industry, thus preventing any growth or even maintenance of current levels. This decision seems to make little financial sense; it makes little cultural sense either.

The film industry has been operating here for a number of years and enjoying certain tax breaks (known as Section 481) from the government. These breaks are awarded on the basis of employment, tax and expenditure contributed. Rather than simply keep these tax concessions in place the government have announced that they are going to completely halt them at the end of 2004. When this happens, this small industry will go into meltdown. Jobs and livelihoods will be lost, revenue potentially owed to the government will be forfeited, local spending will be reduced by millions each year.

Even if you care nothing for the film industry, if you believe Irish films are crap (and I’ll return to this), and you also believe foreign movies produced here are correspondingly awful, surely you must admit the benefits for the country in terms of revenue and employment.

Lets take some examples from recent history. Similar sized industries and companies have been handsomely rewarded by the government for operating and employing here in Ireland, particularly US-owned multinationals. Corporate tax for many of these companies is as low as 10%. As director Jim Sheridan said recently “The Government has seen success through its incentives for the Irish pharmaceutical, software and biotech industries and this approach should be applied to the Irish film and television drama sector.”

The government seems to have a peculiar attitude towards film. Let’s say we had won a few Academy Awards this year for a film directed by an Irish director. Let’s say we got all proud and chuffed with ourselves just like back in the late ’80s and early ’90s when My Left Foot and The Crying Game won all those Oscars and Baftas. It’s safe to say that in those circumstances the government would decide not to take this opportunity to wipe out the future of the industry in one crude blow.

What the government, and in particular Ministers like the current Minister for the Arts John O’Donoghue, and the previous Arts Minister Sile de Valera, cannot seem to decide is whether film is an art or an enterprise, a worthy cultural pursuit, or a potential moneyspinner. For quite some time Irish film industry figures themselves could not seem to make the distinction. Should the industry be supported by the government purely because it wins awards and is a cultural representation of our country? Well, those awards are slim on the shelves these days, so those grounds are a little shaky right now.

Alternatively, should revenue be the reason that a welcoming environment is created for film producers? Ten years ago relatively little production was happening here, but today it is truly a different story. The number of feature film and TV drama productions per annum has increased from an average of six per year in the period 1989-1992 to an average of 21 productions per year during the period 2000-2001. Today Ireland can support four to five large-scale productions at any one time. Last year there were 95 film, television and animation productions in Ireland – including feature films, TV drama and independent programming commissioned by broadcasters. And the rest of the world seems to agree – Ireland is now one of the top six preferred film locations in the world Screen International recently confirmed. We have co-produced films with every major film-producing country, including the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy and Australia.

And every major Hollywood studio, including Warner Bros., Universal and Disney, has produced/co-produced a film in Ireland in recent years, among them: Reign of Fire, Braveheart, Evelyn, The Magdalene Sisters, Angela’s Ashes, About Adam, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Butcher Boy, Michael Collins, Saving Private Ryan, In the Name of the Father, and the soon to be released In America. Currently shooting in Ardmore Studios in Wicklow is the mega-budget Jerry Bruckheimer production of King Arthur and Jerry’s no slouch when it comes to putting money on the screen.

With all this to back them up, the Irish film industry has decided to get tough. Pre-empting the government’s proposed December 2004 date to cancel tax breaks by about a year and a half, Screen Producers Ireland have issued a report with clear recommendations to the government. This makes good sense, an attempt to nudge Minister O’Donoghue onto the right path before he gets too entrenched in his position and the civil servants are already spitting on their pencils. But it also makes sense because the Minister’s plans are affecting the film industry right now. Each feature film takes at least a year to develop before it even shoots a frame of film. Some may take longer, and all the finance has to be in place before a camera is hired or an actor is signed.

We have just lost a major $100m production of the C.S.Lewis classic The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. An Irish delegation had boosted Ireland to the top of the list as a location for the film, to be directed by Oscar-winner Andrew Adamson of Shrek fame. But now New Zealand, where recent film-friendly tax breaks have just been renewed, will gain the millions of dollars spend as well as employment and training of hundreds of film crew members. The reason for the move to New Zealand? As director Adamson said recently tax incentives will bring the production to “wherever I can get the most bang for my buck.”As usual, money talks loudest in the movie business.

But back to those awards, and to the quality or otherwise of our home-grown produce. The average punter would probably rather see the children’s classic described above than watch “an Irish film.” The quality has not been consistent, and many would say that Ireland has yet to find its voice in film. But anything that is world-class takes time to develop, and requires steady support.

Let’s be perfectly honest here. Our film Industry proper has been running for approximately 16 years. In that same timespan the US film industry hadn’t even gotten to round to making the Keystone Cops. And once the American film industry matured it provided opportunities galore for those who were prepared to take them. Fifteen years ago, most school-leavers here , for instance, couldn’t contemplate a career in film. Third-level film courses were in their infancy. Film wasn’t even mentioned in second-level school’s. There weren’t a whole-lot of seven-year old Spielbergs running around their backyard with a Super8 camera. Our economy was depressed to boot, and Irish film meant ‘Oirish’, a shudderingly awful genre practised by John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara. Many potential film-makers went to England, got jobs in banks, and pretty much lost their identity.

But with all this, progress was still being made. We have four world-class directors here – Neil Jordan, Jim Sheridan, Damien O’Donnell and Alan Gilsenan. The first three directors make films that manage to be both entertaining, award-winning and commercially driven. Gilsenan, a unique film-maker, probably has more concern with aesthetics than box office. But all of them are world-respected and have a well-earned reputation. And for blockbuster action movie you need look no further than Dundalk-born John Moore who went straight from directing ads to making the $40 million Behind Enemy Lines with Gene Hackman.

We have produced actors like Liam Neeson, Pierce Brosnan, Cillian Murphy and the little-known Colin Farrell. Our creative technicians are also gaining ground rapidly. Cinematographers including Declan Quinn (Leaving Las Vegas) and Seamus McGarvey (The Hours, High Fidelity) are highly sought after for big-budget foreign productions and occasional smaller Irish ones. Strangely enough, Irish screenwriters are only beginning to come to the fore. Given that many observers would have thought our writers to be one of our greatest assets, it is surprising that only now scripts are being produced that can be considered Hollywood-worthy.

But should we have to make films which pander to the Hollywood mentality? Why not? It’s where the industry is centred, and looking at recent Tinseltown output it could do with a little help. Besides a variety of film-making styles and influences can only help our culture. Perhaps we lack confidence. American director Joel Schumacher angrily responded on RTE radio when asked why he thought people would care for a story about a female Irish journalist named Veronica Guerin.

“Is there a self-deprecating mentality among Irish people? Why would anyone care about an Irish story? Who cares about a bitchy girl in the South during the Civil War? Who cares about a mathematician with schizophrenia? Or an eccentric Englishman who goes to Arabia?”

He may have a point. Irish film-makers should forget about the cliched landscapes of Irish film, real or imaginary, and look for stories that keep them up all night.

Meantime Minister John O’Donoghue must look at the recent report by Screen Producers Ireland and review his strategy. This government needs to stop alternately yippeeing and boo-hooing its way through our economy, society and culture. And it should let our film industry thrive rather than killing it in its infancy.