Variety has released an article charting the Irish film industry’s growth over the past thirty years, with interviewees including IFTA CEO Áine Moriarty, Big Things Films producer Alan Moloney, and Screen Ireland CEO Désirée Finnegan.
Following the success of recent Irish films such as The Banshees of Inisherin and An Cailín Ciúin, and ahead of an Oscars weekend that is expected to see Cillian Murphy win the Academy Award for Best Actor, Variety have released an article highlighting the growth of the Irish film industry over the last thirty years.
A wide variety of Irish film industry professionals are interviewed in the article. Small Things Like These and Brooklyn producer Alan Moloney describe the recent international success of Irish film as “the result of 25 to 30 years of investment in the industry”. Ed Guiney, co-founder of Element Pictures, cites a combination of Ireland’s literary history with investment in the industry as why the Irish have “taken to [film] like ducks to water”.
As well as IFTA CEO Áine Moriarty, who recalls the Irish actors and filmmakers who won awards in the first years of the IFTA awards and have since gone on to international acclaim, such as actor Andrew Scott and director Lenny Abrahamson. Referring to Abrahamson’s win for his debut feature Adam & Paul, his first collaboration with the then recently-launched Element Pictures, Moriarty noted: “We all know where that journey led onto.”
The feature also recapped recent Irish success stories in the film industry, from Paul Mescal to Kneecap at Sundance, the article gives a crash course in Irish film history, covering the reinstating of the Irish Film Board in 1993, Ireland as a location for large international projects such as Braveheart, and how Section 481 funding continues to incentivise international projects to shoot in Ireland.
“There’s a belief that when artists are properly supported, you give them space to create the best work possible,” added Screen Ireland CEO Désirée Finnegan.
To read the article in full, click here.
