What's in a name...

...a government department by any other name would smell as sweet.

I have belatedly changed the link name for what was the Department of Arts, Sport & Tourism to the Department of Tourism, Culture & Sport, although the actual url remains the same, at least for the moment.

At the time of the Cabinet re-shuffle, the re-naming of the Department, and the appointment of Mary Hanafin as Minister, there was some discussion about whether the Department and the Minister herself were being downgraded.

I believe the alphabet is never far from Irish politicians' minds since election candidates' surnames can be a factor in electoral contests, particularly in the multi-seat constituency system. So the listing order of names is something they pay attention to.

Petty or not as this may seem, the forgrounding of Tourism, in the place of Arts (or Culture), in the Department's title now puts it well down the listing of Government Departments. That looks deliberate, to me.

The Department also suffered a degree of marginalisation arising from the illness of the two previous Ministerial incumbents, and from the fall from grace of their predecessor, John O'Donoghue, whose expenses became a matter of public controversy.

O'Donoghue was also responsible for decentralising significant parts of the Department to his home county of Kerry. Now however, we have a Dublin-based Minister for a Department where many functions - including the film section - are split between Dublin and Killarney.

Perhaps there has been no organisational fall-out (or loss of institutional expertise) from the geographical rearrangements. Perhaps Minister Hanafin finds herself in a Department that is in good shape and able to maintain a watchful eye on the agencies that report to it. Time, and budgets, will tell.

Film +/- Art

Another film director, Conor McPherson, was elected to membership of Aosdána (An affiliation of creative artists in Ireland) at the organisation's annual AGM, held last week in Armagh.

Since those artists who wish to become members must work in either Visual arts, Literature, Music, Architecture, or Choreography it must be assumed, I suppose, that film making per se is not an artform.

Instead, those film makers who have been elected to Aosdána achieved their membership either as visual artists or, like McPherson and Neil Jordan before him, as writers of literature.

It seems odd, to me at least, that film making has not been deemed an eligible art form in its own right. If architecture is not a visual art - although it is heavily design-based - then how is film a visual art when so much of film making is to do with story-telling?

The following film makers are members of Aosdána:
Visual Artists
Cathal Black
Joe Comerford
John T. Davis
Vivienne Dick
Louis Marcus
George Morrison
Pat Murphy
Bob Quinn
David Shaw-Smith

Literature
Carlo Gébler
Neil Jordan
Louis Lentin


I would consider all of the above to be creative artists who use film as a story-telling medium.

I've included only those readily identified as authors (directors) of films and I have excluded the many writers (such as Billy Roche and Bernard MacLaverty) who have extensive screenwriting credits.

Tescovision II - the sequel

Following up on my post (below) about Tesco's Irish DVD promotion Tesco have got back to me as follows -

The current range of Irish films on DVD at Tesco were part of an Irish promotion for St Patrick’s Day and runs nationwide. This promotion started on St Patrick’s Week and is still running in stores due to its popularity. There are 37 Irish films in this range, with over 12,000 units sold in the four weeks since St Patrick’s Day. The top five most popular Irish films in the promotion have been:

The Snapper
The Van
Hunger
Omagh
The Quiet Man

Throughout the year we maintain a strong presence of Irish films in our back catalogue DVD section, along with promoting any new Irish DVD releases in our chart.

12,000+ units is pretty good going in a four week period. I've sent in a supplementary enquiring how they are sourcing the films but that may be deemed a commercially sensitive issue.

[update: Tesco tell me the films are sourced through BeaumeX in Walkinstown in Dublin. "We work with an Irish Distribution Company, Beaumex, to source our DVD titles for promotions of this nature – they would work directly with the studios for nominations for the promotion and we would have final choice."]

A number of other questions do come to mind. Are the films' producers seeing any return (however modest) from this, or are distributors finally seeing some payback on rights they may have paid for many years ago? But do they still legitimately hold those rights, in Ireland?

And what of those cases where the production company has been wound up? There are a few Littlebird* titles in there, for instance, who now owns the rights to those titles?

I can update the list of titles with the following (from another perusal of the shelves) -

In Bruges (Universal) €5
Hunger (Pathé) [again, but for €3.50]
Fifty Dead Men Walking €7
Once [unpriced]
Nothing Personal €5


*I will at some stage write about my attempts last year to come by the facts of the demise of Littlebird.

Some funding-related musing

The IFB announced another round of funding offers on March 30th. That's almost two months since the last round of offers was made on Feruary 1st.

It would be useful if the agency were to indicate whether these were the dates the decisions were made, or the dates the decisions were published. In the absence of the clarification one might be forgiven for thinking that few funding decisions have been made in the first quarter of 2010.

I was somewhat surprised by the amounts offered by way of distribution (print and advertising) loans to Ondine and Zonad, on March 30th. That is, after the films had been released.

Ondine's distributor Paramount Pictures has been offered a loan of €50,000. Zonad's distributor (and producer) Element Pictures has been offered a loan of €75,000.

Both films have now finished their run at the Irish box office. Ondine has grossed €207,838 while Zonad has grossed approximately €36,000.

A comparatively small number of development loans were offered this round. Just six, including four 'First Draft Loans', with amounts from €10,000 to €20,000.

Interesting to see Brock Norman Brock, British screenwriter (Bronson) and former UK Film Council executive, is the recipient of one of the four €12,000 'First Draft Loans'.

Tescovision

It's been a while since I posted anything here. I was doing some writing for money and then I was a bit ill, and then I had more paying work to do, and then I was another bit ill followed by a bit more work. And then, in a surprising medical intervention, I was detained in hospital for the guts of a week. The saga continues... (Nothing too serious I'm told, but the root cause has yet to be determined).

But back to the subject matter of this here blog.

I was in Tesco, on a hunt for 60% dark Easterolate, when I noticed the depleted rack of Irish DVD titles on sale. They were priced at €5 each for the most part, although a few were higher.

I'm presuming that this promotion*, if that's what it was, was on offer thoughout Tesco's outlets in the Republic but I wonder if they put it together themselves or if an enterprising wholesaler thought up the idea to clear their 'remainder' bins.

Many of the DVD boxes had no obvious distributor named and as I turned over the boxes in my hands I was asking myself questions about Irish rights-holders, Irish producers' shares, Irish production companies that have since gone bust, and when the films might have received their Irish classification ratings, where they were evident.

Here's the list of what was on offer, in no particular order. There are some real rarities here, and some titles that just aren't Irish at all.

The Snapper (BBC Films) €12.95
Hunger (Pathé) €7.00
The Van (20thC Fox) €7.00
The Commitments (20thC Fox) €5.00
My Left Foot (Ferndale) €5.00
The Field (Ferndale) €5.00
Into The West €5.00
Angela's Ashes €5.00
The Informer €5.00
Mickeybo and Me €5.00
Borstal Boy €5.00
Crushproof €5.00
Dancing at Lughnasa €5.00
Dead Long Enough €5.00
December Bride €5.00
Headrush €5.00
Evelyn €5.00
In America €5.00
The Magdelen Sisters €5.00
Moondance €5.00
Ordinary Decent Criminal €5.00
Ryan's Daughter €5.00
Small Engine Repair €5.00
Song for a Raggy Boy €5.00
The McMullen Brothers (sic) €5.00
The Butcher Boy (WB) €5.00
The Halo Effect €5.00
Waking Ned €5.00
When Brendan Met Trudy €5.00
The General €5.00
48 Angels €5.00
Bloody Sunday €5.00
The Quiet Man €5.00
Michael Collins (WB) €5.00
The Wind That Shakes the Barley €5.00

*I've put some questions to Tesco about this and if they get back to me I'll post further details here.