Irish not Oirish: what on earth went right?
It has been a great few years for the Irish film industry and the quality is set to continue this autumn writes Aine O’Connor
THE year began beautifully for Irish film with Oscar nominations in big categories for both Lenny Abrahamson’s Room and John Crowley’s Brooklyn, with Dubliner Ben Cleary winning the best live action short Oscar for his lovely Stutterer. On the documentary festival circuit there was international acclaim and awards for Irish documentaries Mattress Men, Bobby Sands: 66 Days and Land of the Enlightened. In its round-up of the top ten best films of the first half of 2016, Entertainment Weekly included three Irish/Irish-ish films The Lobster (released in the US this year), Sing Street and Viva.
The quality and the acclaim are wonderful, but what is perhaps the greatest sign of health is the range. There is such a diversity of topics and styles, both very local and entirely universal, that show a confidence and vision. There are new film makers with fresh eyes and minds and more seasoned professionals whose work has done much over the years to build what is now coming to fruition. Lenny Abrahamson and Mark O’Halloran have separately reached international audiences with Room and Viva this year, but they made Adam and Paul together in 2004. And the good stuff keeps coming with some great Irish films and documentaries coming down the line for the rest of the year.
It is worth mentioning too that technically there’s a wealth of expertise in the country. With so much being shot here, a lot of TV, homegrown productions as well as international series like Game of Thrones, Vikings and Penny Dreadful and films like Love & Friendship, business is booming, not just for extras, but for crew. Film makers who work with them are full of praise and, while there will be plenty of argument from certain quarters on this, kudos too has to go to the Irish Film Board for funding local and international projects.
So, what have we got to look forward to in the coming months? There have been some really excellent Irish documentaries in recent years and many of their makers are releasing follow-ups. Ken Wardrop’s Mom & Me is out now and the team at Under- ground Productions who made the multi-award-winning, fascinating and heartbreaking One Million Dubliners, will release Strange Occurrences in a Small Irish Village on August 26. Aoife Kelleher looks at the apparition in Knock in the 1970s and explores the notion of faith. Thirty-five years on from his death, Bobby Sands: 66 Days (August 5) is Brendan J Byrne’s examination of who Sands was and what those events meant. In October there is Mattress Men, Colm Quinn’s doc about “Mattress Mick” Flynn which has been capturing hearts on the festival circuit. Release dates are yet to be confirmed for Land of the Enlightened, the IFB co-funded and Fastnet Films co-produced doc on Afghan children who trade in mines and lapis lazuli, and It’s Not Dark Yet, Frankie Fenton’s doc based on film maker Simon Fitzmaurice’s memoir of life with MND. It took the Best Irish Feature Documentary prize at this month’s Galway Film Fleadh, where Best Irish Feature Award was split between A Date for Mad Mary and Peter Foott’s The Young Offenders. Set respectively in Drogheda and Cork, with young casts and great humour and tone, these films are really Irish, but in no way Oirish. And the gorgeous Viva (August 19) is Cuban! I could go on, but basically there’s a confidence and a vision in much of the cinema that is being made in and through Ireland that makes you know that something is going very right.