The Irish Film & Television Academy has announced that long-time Irish resident producer/director/writer John Boorman will be the recipient of the IFTA Lifetime Achievement Award at this year's IFTA awards on Feb 20.
Marking today’s announcement Mr. Martin Mansergh, Minister for State, said, "Ireland’s audiovisual industry is a vital part of the 'smart' economy, developing a vibrant mix of talent, creativity and enterprise. I am delighted to acknowledge the fine work achieved by this industry over the past 12 months. The sector continues to deliver quality output that has achieved both critical and economic success."
"John Boorman has deservedly received many accolades over his long career. However this Lifetime Achievement Award from Ireland will also celebrate John’s impact and influence on the early years of our film industry, playing a vital role as Chairman of the original Irish Film Board and also as Chairman of Ardmore Studios."
Born in England in 1933, John Boorman has resided in Co. Wicklow for almost forty years since he first came here to film Zardoz. Boorman served as Chairman of the first Irish Film Board and was chairman of the National Film Studios (now Ardmore Studios) until 1982. His grandmother Fitzgerald (on his father’s side) was Irish and influenced his fascination with the Celtic myths which so often appear in his work.
Boorman has shot four of his feature films here, beginning in 1974 with Zardoz. In 1980 he made the Arthurian tale Excalibur, featuring Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne and Ciarán Hinds in their earliest film roles. Boorman went on to exec-produce Neil Jordan’s first feature Angel in 1982. This was the subject of some controversy at the time due to his also holding the Chairmanship of the IFB which was funding the project with Channel 4.
Boorman's other Irish films include The General, the Martin Cahill biopic, and his most recent release The Tiger’s Tail. Some of The Tailor of Panama was also filmed here, and a largely Irish crew worked the location shoot abroad. Added to this he has nearly always brought his films back to Ireland for significant post production work. He has also been a mentor to many people starting out in the industry in Ireland.
Irish film industry insiders will note that the press release announcing the award makes no reference to Boorman's company, Merlin Films, which he established with accountant Kieran Corrigan. This despite the fact that Merlin raised huge sums ($125m according to its former website) in Section 481 investment finance, some of which funded Boorman's recent Irish films while most of the balance went into productions based at the now defunct Concorde Anois studio in Connemara.
Merlin's Section 481 funding of Roger Corman productions at Concorde became a matter of serious dispute with the Revenue Commissioners who believed the films were not fully compliant with the regulations. The Revenue believed that Section 481 funding was finding its way out of the country to The Phillipines and Aruba and sought to claw back the tax relief given to Irish investors.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Irish box office
It's been a strong weekend (Jan 15-17) at the Irish box office with Fox being the main beneficiary, their titles Avatar, The Squeakquel and opener All About Steve all doing lively business.
Avatar increased its gross by nearly 20% on the previous weekend despite a small reduction in print numbers. The film has now passed the €5m mark in the Republic with 3D prints taking six times the total grossed on conventional 2D screens.
The Squeakquel grew by approximately 50% over the previous weekend's gross while Sony's It's Complicated also stretched its legs with an additional 18%.
The better figures may suggest that the bad weather had supressed cinema-going over the previous fortnight and that audiences were shrugging off their cabin fever and doing some catching up.
Irish film Happy Ever Afters is tailing off with a disappointing €63,847 total gross after four weeks on what began as a 30-print release. The Irish Film Board contributed €37,500 towards the print and advertising costs of the release through a distribution support loan on December 16 last.
Updated with chart:
+Ted+Sheehy.JPG)
Avatar increased its gross by nearly 20% on the previous weekend despite a small reduction in print numbers. The film has now passed the €5m mark in the Republic with 3D prints taking six times the total grossed on conventional 2D screens.
The Squeakquel grew by approximately 50% over the previous weekend's gross while Sony's It's Complicated also stretched its legs with an additional 18%.
The better figures may suggest that the bad weather had supressed cinema-going over the previous fortnight and that audiences were shrugging off their cabin fever and doing some catching up.
Irish film Happy Ever Afters is tailing off with a disappointing €63,847 total gross after four weeks on what began as a 30-print release. The Irish Film Board contributed €37,500 towards the print and advertising costs of the release through a distribution support loan on December 16 last.
Updated with chart:
+Ted+Sheehy.JPG)
Monday, January 18, 2010
Eurimages - Irish round up
Mention of La Mula in my Jan 14 post caused me to reflect on Irish film making and Eurimages, the Council of Europe's co-production fund.
La Mula began as a project developed in the UK with the support of the UK Film Council (£104,673) by British director Michael Radford. But the UK is not a member of Eurimages and under the terms of the scheme a UK angle is of no use to a co-production applying to the fund. The rules lay down that "all projects submitted must have at least two co-producers from different member states of the Fund."
Because of this the presumption has always been that Ireland's membership of Eurimages brings European co-producers to Ireland when they are looking for an English language co-production partner.
As we can see with La Mula that was not the case at the time. The Irish involvement only came after the Eurimages decision was made. There were Spanish and German co-producers attached to the project when it was approved, as well as Radford's own company in the UK.
The other projects with an Irish interest funded by Eurimages in 2008 were:
Circus Fantasticus
By Janez Burger (Slovenia)
Feature Film
Awarded: €300,000
Co-producers:
STARA GARA / PROPELER FILM d.o.o. / CINE WORKS (SI)
KELCOM Ltd / FASTNET FILMS (IE)
Neka Drige Price
By Hanna A Slak (Slovenia), Marija Dzidzeva ("The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia"), Ana Rossi (Serbia), Ivona Juka (Croatia), Ines Tanovic (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Feature Film
Awarded: €190,000
Co-producers: SEE FILM PRO (RS); STUDIO MAJ PRODUCTION d.o.o. (SI); 4 FILM (HR); DOKUMENT (BA); SKOPJE FILM STUDIO (MK); DIG PRODUCTIONS Ltd (IE)
Triage
By Danis Tanovic (Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Feature Film
Awarded: €650,000
Co-producers:
STRADBROOK PRODUCTIONS Ltd/PARALLEL FILMS (IE)
ASAP FILMS Sarl (FR)
FREEFORM SPAIN (ES)
In 2009 the following projects with an Irish angle were funded:
As if I am not there
By Juanita Wilson (Ireland)
Feature Film
Awarded: €220,000
Co-producers:
WIDE EYE FILMS Ltd (IE)
STELLA NOVA FILM (SE)
SEKTOR FILM DOOEL (MK)
The Essence of Killing
By Jerzy Skolimowski (Poland)
Feature film
Awarded: €400,000
Co-producers:
SKOPIA FILM (PL)
CYLINDER PRODUCTIONS AS (NO)
ILIADE ET FILMS (FR)
ELEMENT PICTURES LIMITED (IE)
The Last Furlong
By Agnès Merlet (France)
Feature Film
Awarded: €600,000
Co-producers:
FIDELITE FILMS S.A (FR)
OCTAGON FILMS LIMITED (IE)
All Good Children
By Alicia Duffy (United Kingdom)
Feature Film
Awarded: €300,000
Co-producers:
ELEMENT PICTURES LIMITED (IE)
CINEMA DEFACTO (FR)
ARTEMIS PRODUCTIONS SA (BE)
Thor - The Edda Chronicles
By Gunnar Karlsson (Iceland), Toby Genkel (Germany)
Feature Film - Animation
Awarded: €480,000
Co-producers:
CAOZ STUDIO Ltd (IS)
ULYSSES GMBH FILM – UND FERNSEHPRODUKTION (DE)
MAGMA PRODUCTIONS (IE)
All Good Children is an adaptation of the novel The Republic of Trees and was initially developed by (the now defunct) Little Bird. The IFB made a provisional offer of funding to Little Bird for the project in August 2008. Subsequently the project was with Jonathan Cavendish at Caveman Films in London. The film was shot in France in August and September of last year.
All Good Children, Circus Fantasticus and La Mula were all offered production funding by the Irish Film Board on 18 December 2008. The amounts offered were €600,000, €250,000 and €500,000 respectively. As far as I am aware none of these projects has had a significant Irish budget spend. That said, story changes resulted in significant Irish casting in All Good Children.
This preliminary look at Eurimages decisions over the last two years suggests that the basic idea that our Eurimages membership contributes to an inflow of production (and production spend) into Ireland is in fact a good deal more complex.
All Good Children and La Mula between them have an outflow of up to €1.1m in IFB funding, whereas Triage (partly Irish location, casting, and post-production) would have brought an inflow of budget spend (presumably) greater than the IFB's €750,000 contribution to its budget.
Another question arises in respect of the benefit of Eurimages to Irish talent. Only one Irish director, Juanita Wilson, has been supported by Eurimages over the last two years and the majority of projects have not been developed or written in Ireland.
One could deduce from this that Eurimages offers little support to Irish talent and indigenous production, for all that it may contibute positively to production levels in Ireland. However, on the principle that money follows money, might a corollary of this be that the Eurimages scheme has the effect of drawing Irish funding away from Irish directing and writing talent?
La Mula began as a project developed in the UK with the support of the UK Film Council (£104,673) by British director Michael Radford. But the UK is not a member of Eurimages and under the terms of the scheme a UK angle is of no use to a co-production applying to the fund. The rules lay down that "all projects submitted must have at least two co-producers from different member states of the Fund."
Because of this the presumption has always been that Ireland's membership of Eurimages brings European co-producers to Ireland when they are looking for an English language co-production partner.
As we can see with La Mula that was not the case at the time. The Irish involvement only came after the Eurimages decision was made. There were Spanish and German co-producers attached to the project when it was approved, as well as Radford's own company in the UK.
The other projects with an Irish interest funded by Eurimages in 2008 were:
Circus Fantasticus
By Janez Burger (Slovenia)
Feature Film
Awarded: €300,000
Co-producers:
STARA GARA / PROPELER FILM d.o.o. / CINE WORKS (SI)
KELCOM Ltd / FASTNET FILMS (IE)
Neka Drige Price
By Hanna A Slak (Slovenia), Marija Dzidzeva ("The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia"), Ana Rossi (Serbia), Ivona Juka (Croatia), Ines Tanovic (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Feature Film
Awarded: €190,000
Co-producers: SEE FILM PRO (RS); STUDIO MAJ PRODUCTION d.o.o. (SI); 4 FILM (HR); DOKUMENT (BA); SKOPJE FILM STUDIO (MK); DIG PRODUCTIONS Ltd (IE)
Triage
By Danis Tanovic (Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Feature Film
Awarded: €650,000
Co-producers:
STRADBROOK PRODUCTIONS Ltd/PARALLEL FILMS (IE)
ASAP FILMS Sarl (FR)
FREEFORM SPAIN (ES)
In 2009 the following projects with an Irish angle were funded:
As if I am not there
By Juanita Wilson (Ireland)
Feature Film
Awarded: €220,000
Co-producers:
WIDE EYE FILMS Ltd (IE)
STELLA NOVA FILM (SE)
SEKTOR FILM DOOEL (MK)
The Essence of Killing
By Jerzy Skolimowski (Poland)
Feature film
Awarded: €400,000
Co-producers:
SKOPIA FILM (PL)
CYLINDER PRODUCTIONS AS (NO)
ILIADE ET FILMS (FR)
ELEMENT PICTURES LIMITED (IE)
The Last Furlong
By Agnès Merlet (France)
Feature Film
Awarded: €600,000
Co-producers:
FIDELITE FILMS S.A (FR)
OCTAGON FILMS LIMITED (IE)
All Good Children
By Alicia Duffy (United Kingdom)
Feature Film
Awarded: €300,000
Co-producers:
ELEMENT PICTURES LIMITED (IE)
CINEMA DEFACTO (FR)
ARTEMIS PRODUCTIONS SA (BE)
Thor - The Edda Chronicles
By Gunnar Karlsson (Iceland), Toby Genkel (Germany)
Feature Film - Animation
Awarded: €480,000
Co-producers:
CAOZ STUDIO Ltd (IS)
ULYSSES GMBH FILM – UND FERNSEHPRODUKTION (DE)
MAGMA PRODUCTIONS (IE)
All Good Children is an adaptation of the novel The Republic of Trees and was initially developed by (the now defunct) Little Bird. The IFB made a provisional offer of funding to Little Bird for the project in August 2008. Subsequently the project was with Jonathan Cavendish at Caveman Films in London. The film was shot in France in August and September of last year.
All Good Children, Circus Fantasticus and La Mula were all offered production funding by the Irish Film Board on 18 December 2008. The amounts offered were €600,000, €250,000 and €500,000 respectively. As far as I am aware none of these projects has had a significant Irish budget spend. That said, story changes resulted in significant Irish casting in All Good Children.
This preliminary look at Eurimages decisions over the last two years suggests that the basic idea that our Eurimages membership contributes to an inflow of production (and production spend) into Ireland is in fact a good deal more complex.
All Good Children and La Mula between them have an outflow of up to €1.1m in IFB funding, whereas Triage (partly Irish location, casting, and post-production) would have brought an inflow of budget spend (presumably) greater than the IFB's €750,000 contribution to its budget.
Another question arises in respect of the benefit of Eurimages to Irish talent. Only one Irish director, Juanita Wilson, has been supported by Eurimages over the last two years and the majority of projects have not been developed or written in Ireland.
One could deduce from this that Eurimages offers little support to Irish talent and indigenous production, for all that it may contibute positively to production levels in Ireland. However, on the principle that money follows money, might a corollary of this be that the Eurimages scheme has the effect of drawing Irish funding away from Irish directing and writing talent?
Sunday, January 17, 2010
+Ted+Sheehy.JPG)
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Soderbergh KOs IFB for €600k
This may not be fresh news but... in a decision made pre-Christmas (Dec 16) the Irish Film Board committed €600,000 to Knockout, a Steven Soderbergh project written by Lem (Kitaj) Dobbs. Soderbergh and Dobbs previously worked together on The Limey and Kafka.
The lead company on Knockout is Relativity Media with distribution through Lionsgate. The Irish co-producer cited by the IFB is Parallel Films.
The decision comes under the IFB's "Fiction Creative Co-production" heading, which may suggest that there is some payback coming to Ireland for giving €600,000 to a US production. Will Relativity back a Parallel project in return? The only obvious Irish connection to the project is the casting of Michael Fassbender.
UPDATE: Jan 19 - local press are reporting that Knockout will shoot in Dublin and Wicklow for three weeks from February 2nd. Belfast DJ and regular Soderbergh collaborator David Holmes will be doing the score.
€600,000 is one of the largest commitments the IFB has made under the "Fiction Creative Co-production" scheme. Incidentally, the only other feature drama awarded funding on Dec 16, The Essence Of Killing, was also funded through this scheme. The Essence Of Killing has another well-known director at the helm, Jerzy Skolimowski, and the film is being co-produced by Element Pictures. It has an offer of €250,000.
A UK/Spain/Germany/Ireland co-production, La Mula, was offered €500,000 through the same scheme towards the end of 2008. The film was in its final week of production in Spain last November when an delayed contractual issue relating to the Spanish participation caused director Michael Radford (also a producer) to leave the shoot.
La Mula also received significant public funding from the UK Film Council (£104,673 devpt + £1,092,437 prodn) and Eurimages (€650,000). The Irish co-production company, Subotica Entertainment, became involved in the project subsequent to the Eurimages decision on July 2, 2008.
Movie geeks will recall that IFB CEO Simon Perry produced three of Radford's previous films - Another Time, Another Place, 1984 and White Mischief.
The most recent IFB decisions in respect of indigenous features (Nov 24) are My Brothers (Dir Paul Fraser, Rubicon Films) €525,000 (not incl. Regional Support); Back to Jack (Dir Kirsten Sheridan, Subotica/Blindside) €600,000; and Day of Rest (Dir Brian O'Malley, Parallel) €800,000.
My Brothers was shot on location in Cork from late November until before Christmas. The film is produced by Rebecca O'Flanagan and Rob Walpole through Rubicon and is funded by the IFB, Windmill Lane and RTE. Crew includes PJ DIllon (DOP), Mark Geraghty (Prodn Desn) and Emer Reynolds (Ed).
The lead company on Knockout is Relativity Media with distribution through Lionsgate. The Irish co-producer cited by the IFB is Parallel Films.
The decision comes under the IFB's "Fiction Creative Co-production" heading, which may suggest that there is some payback coming to Ireland for giving €600,000 to a US production. Will Relativity back a Parallel project in return? The only obvious Irish connection to the project is the casting of Michael Fassbender.
UPDATE: Jan 19 - local press are reporting that Knockout will shoot in Dublin and Wicklow for three weeks from February 2nd. Belfast DJ and regular Soderbergh collaborator David Holmes will be doing the score.
€600,000 is one of the largest commitments the IFB has made under the "Fiction Creative Co-production" scheme. Incidentally, the only other feature drama awarded funding on Dec 16, The Essence Of Killing, was also funded through this scheme. The Essence Of Killing has another well-known director at the helm, Jerzy Skolimowski, and the film is being co-produced by Element Pictures. It has an offer of €250,000.
A UK/Spain/Germany/Ireland co-production, La Mula, was offered €500,000 through the same scheme towards the end of 2008. The film was in its final week of production in Spain last November when an delayed contractual issue relating to the Spanish participation caused director Michael Radford (also a producer) to leave the shoot.
La Mula also received significant public funding from the UK Film Council (£104,673 devpt + £1,092,437 prodn) and Eurimages (€650,000). The Irish co-production company, Subotica Entertainment, became involved in the project subsequent to the Eurimages decision on July 2, 2008.
Movie geeks will recall that IFB CEO Simon Perry produced three of Radford's previous films - Another Time, Another Place, 1984 and White Mischief.
The most recent IFB decisions in respect of indigenous features (Nov 24) are My Brothers (Dir Paul Fraser, Rubicon Films) €525,000 (not incl. Regional Support); Back to Jack (Dir Kirsten Sheridan, Subotica/Blindside) €600,000; and Day of Rest (Dir Brian O'Malley, Parallel) €800,000.
My Brothers was shot on location in Cork from late November until before Christmas. The film is produced by Rebecca O'Flanagan and Rob Walpole through Rubicon and is funded by the IFB, Windmill Lane and RTE. Crew includes PJ DIllon (DOP), Mark Geraghty (Prodn Desn) and Emer Reynolds (Ed).
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