As in most things, there's a pecking order in the world of Irish film schools, and the cumbersomely-named Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology has been at its apex for more than 10 years. Ballyfermot Senior College's diploma course, producing a modest output of two short dramas and two advertisements this year, contrasts with the expansive showcase from DLIADT, almost three hours in duration and running to 30 pieces of work, from digital animations to live-action dramas. Continuing the trend of recent years, the Dun Laoghaire programme largely avoided straightforward naturalism, preferring fantasy and horror, with a hearty emphasis on the gruesome and grotesque. The technical standard seems to have improved even further over previous years, an impression possibly influenced by the excellent video projection system installed temporarily by the college (while the IFC deserves praise for making its cinema available for the graduate shows, it should think long and hard about the disparity between the DLIADT show and the quality of its own video projection).
Suburban angst figured strongly in many of the dramas (this is Dun Laoghaire, after all). Rodney Lee's Edge of Destruction is an amusing suburban black comedy with an hilariously blood-drenched finale; Garrett Shanley's The Loser Gene does for the Celtic Tiger what The Stepford Wives did for the 1970s American middle class, and Joe McElwaine's comedy, Left Back, while more than a little indebted to Damien O'Donnell's brilliant Thirty Five Aside (surely the Irish short of the 1990s), featured the inspired idea of having the team of Bill O'Herlihy, John Giles and Eamon Dunphy commenting scathingly from the RTE studio on its young protagonist's failings at football.
Of the other short dramas, most impressive was Conor Morrissey's At Death's Door, a comedy about the Grim Reaper's son's reluctance to follow in his father's footsteps - the kind of idea which could have been laid low by student humour and bad acting, but which Morrissey carries off with some wit and verve.
Tom Comerford's The Pawn was an impressive exercise in style, a collage of movement and action beautifully shot in black and white, and Rob Flanagan's pop promo, Frisco, was also visually memorable. Both pieces should act as useful calling cards for their makers as they venture out into the real world. Of the more experimental work, Frances Roe's Dysfunction Aria was the most memorable, essaying some experiments in extreme sound which, while interesting, left this writer in need of paracetamol.
In animation, the high level of technical skill and visual imagination on display was not always matched by the quality of the scriptwriting, but there was a clear divide between those films aimed at the traditional children's audience and those which took their cue from the environs of South Park. Much blood was spilled and flesh mutilated in the likes of Fran Power's Mr Pumpernickle, Alan Eddie's Confession and Ian Kenny's Haunch Cuisine, but the different approaches to texture, colour and framing were more interesting than the gory plotlines. Compared with the DLIADT programme, the films from the diploma course at Ballyfermot Senior College are more modest in ambition and scale - not always a bad thing. Saving Grace, David Coffey's study in bereavement and loss, with Mick Lally as an undertaker empathising with a couple's loss of their young daughter, and The Nixer King, Gerard Murphy's exuberant comedy about a dodgy car mechanic who meets his comeuppance, showed a sure grasp of story dynamics and performance, their more conventional storylines contrasting favourably with some of the more flamboyant (or self-indulgent) Dun Laoghaire work. Two pilot commercials, for Andrews Seltzer and the World Wildlife Fund, were characterised by their visual economy and sense of humour (the Andrews commercial has already won the "Best in Brief" section at this year's Kodak Student Film Awards, beating off competition from several better-known colleges in Ireland and Britain).
Many of the graduate pieces featured obviously sincere thanks for parental support, but it was fascinating how many of the Dun Laoghaire films focused on family tensions, with at least seven going so far as to feature a parental death on-screen. Does this tell us something about the inner and outer worlds of these (mostly twentysomething) film-makers? A similar ambiguity can be seen in Dun Laoghaire and Ballyfermot's official expressions of thanks to the mainstream Irish film industry for its support. There has always been a certain tension between the Irish colleges and the industry: the former resenting the lack of recognition within the union grading systems for their courses; the latter complaining that too many graduates are sent out into the world thinking that they're now fully-fledged directors, camera-people or editors.
Ballyfermot sets out its stall quite clearly; its objective is to ready people for entry-level positions at trainee level within the various disciplines. Dun Laoghaire's brief is broader, and the development of individual creative expression plays a more important part. It's surprising to realise that, despite its 15 years of existence, and the success of its graduates in many areas of film and television, we have still yet to see a feature film directed by a Dun Laoghaire alumnus. There has been a significant improvement in the linkages between colleges and industry in recent years, and Dun Laoghaire has instituted a number of more directly vocational courses in such areas as Make-up and Model-making/Special Effects. More importantly, perhaps, the production boom of the 1990s has ensured plenty of opportunities for young technicians to find a niche within the industry. But this year's worrying slump in Irish film activity might well be a harbinger of tougher times ahead for graduates, and only time will tell if there will be a receptive climate for the undoubted talent on display this week at the IFC.
