ARTSCAPE: There was a collective sigh of relief among artists this week that the tax exemption escaped the knife, but a look at the Report of the Independent Estimates Review Committee, leading up to the Budget, shows another near-miss - the Irish Film Board might have been abolished, writes Deirdre Falvey
There are many gripes about the way the IFB operates - though film industry people would have had a much bigger gripe if it had disappeared altogether - but that was not the reason behind the suggestion. The Arts, Sports and Tourism Vote Group commentary, in the Review Committee report published with the Budget, states: "Irish Film Board - The Committee considers that there is sufficient financial incentive provided to the film industry in Ireland through the Finance Act . . . In view of this the Committee believes that the continuation of the Irish Film Board is unwarranted. The immediate scaling back of activity should yield savings of €4 million in 2003." However, the Minister obviously decided against this advice and there was no mention of it in the Budget. The recommendation in fact indicates a confusion about the relative roles of the tax incentive and the film board.
On the subject of money, the Arts Council will meet shortly to agree levels of funding for arts organisations in 2003, and it plans to publish them at www.artscouncil.ie on December 17th.
Wheels within wheels
It's a small world. Following last week's submissions by traditional arts figures to the recently appointed Joint Oireachtas Committee, the Arts Council made its submission on the new Arts Bill on Thursday (see Weekend page 2), and the technical meeting is next week. The 17-strong committee is drawn from all parties and both houses, and it is interesting that the main proponent of the Arts Bill's proposed controversial standing committee on the traditional arts, Comhaltas Ceolteori Éireann (CCE) director-general and senator Labhrás Ó Murchú, is also a member of the Joint Oireachtas Committee. CCE has mounted an impressive campaign in support of the bill, specifically its provisions for separate funding for traditional arts. Interestingly, Úna Ó Murchú, the artistic director of Brú Boru, the theatre and performing arts group based in Cashel, Co Tipperary and wife of Labhrás Ó Murchú, is also on the Arts Council, which is strongly opposed to the traditional arts committee proposal.
For the record, the members of the Joint Committee on Arts, Sport, Tourism, Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, chaired by Cecilia Keaveney, are deputies James Breen, Michael Collins, Jimmy Deenihan, Damien English, Jim Glennon, Peter Kelly, Fiona O'Malley, Brian O'Shea, Jack Wall and G.V. Wright, and senators Brendan Daly, Joe McHugh, Labhrás Ó Murchú, John Phelan, Kieran Phelan and Joe O'Toole.
Ireland's Headline acts
Rose Doyle, Patricia Scanlon, Mary O'Donnell, Pauline McLynn, Mary Stanley, Mary Ryan, John Connolly, Bill Cullen, Damien Owens, Sheila O'Flanagan - it was wall-to-wall writers at this week's bash to introduce Hodder Headline Ireland's new publishing division in Ireland. The home-based publishing house represents, along with the establishment of Penguin Ireland, a move by British-based publishers to target Irish writers and readers on their own turf.
Hodder Headline Ireland (HHI), headed by managing director Breda Purdue (previously sales and marketing manager here) and publisher Ciara Considine (who has moved from New Island), will specialise in popular and literary fiction, biography/memoir, current affairs/history, humour, sport and mind/body/spirit, and its first titles will appear in the summer and autumn of 2003.
They say much of HHI's fiction and non-fiction will have UK sales potential, and it will co-publish titles in the UK with either Hodder or Headline. A joint bid will be made to the author, reflecting interest from both sources. HHI will also publish non-fiction titles which have good sales potential in the Irish market alone.
HHI announced that it would be publishing Sheila O'Flanagan's new book of short stories next year, but it is keeping mum about other projects in development.
ESB Theatre Award winner
The winner of this year's Irish Times/ESB Theatre Awards bursary is 24-year-old playwright Lisa Tierney Keogh.
A native of Dublin, Tierney Keogh trained at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in New York and is a co-founder of Eden Theatre Company. Her first play, Eve and Adam, was shortlisted for the 2001 Rough Magic/Dublin Fringe Festival SEEDS project and gained her a nomination in the Stewart Parker Trust/BBC awards for new writing in 2002.
Her second play, Lost Song, was staged earlier this year at Draíocht, Blanchardstown as a co-production between Eden Theatre Company and Draíocht. She is currently writer-in-residence at Mount Temple School, Dublin, and proposes to use the bursary of €6,500 to research, write and develop a new play.
Spot the DIFF
The interest generated by the announcement of an alternative film festival in Dublin, the Dublin International Film Festival ("DIFF - it's different" is what the cuckoo in the nest is singing) has left film fans wondering what is the story with the besieged Dublin Film Festival. A hard-hitting strategic review of the festival in 2001 following a series of difficulties and a rapid turnover in programme directors, was pretty damning, and the last Dublin Film Festival was in April 2001. So, following the announcement last week by former DFF manager David McLoughlin and DFF co-founder (and Irish Times film correspondent) Michael Dwyer that they were going to run DIFF in March next year, with an impressive range of people on the board, and grand plans if uncertain (as yet) funding, what is the status of the DFF?
Plans for DIFF seem to have taken the DFF by surprise. Chairman Lewis Clohessy, who returned from a fortnight away to the news, said only "We're generally looking at the situation in the light of recent developments", and couldn't say when the board might decide on its next move.
Engaging the public
Engaging Theatre, a week-long inquiry into the current state of Irish theatre, at the City Arts Centre in Moss Street, Dublin, continues. This afternoon, Calypso hosts a discussion on how theatre can address multiculturalism in Irish society, and Thursday's closing discussion, at 8 p.m. is on the "Current State of Irish Theatre", from the perspective of practitioners, with a panel chaired by Martin Drury and including Donal O'Kelly, Olwen Fouéré and Tim Loane. For details of other discussions and events, tel: 01-6770643.
Meanwhile, City Arts Centre has announced the appointment of Alexa Coyne as project programmer in visual arts and of Peter Hussey as project programmer in performing arts, for the duration of the centre's strategic review.
Hussey is a consultant in theatre and community development and Coyne worked at IMMA and trained in new media at Arthouse in Dublin and the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Both will work with Declan McGonagle on the development of a new identity for the City Arts Centre.