FILM BOARD BUDGET CUT BY 3%

Which is less than the unemployeds' payments got cut! Of course nothing will change: the IFB will still measure success in terms of Academy Award nominations, getting their films screened at the famous festivals, and funding high-profile television productions. Nothing will change. They will still fund expensive shorts, they will still give money to foreign productions filming here, they will still shout about their one success while quietly ignoring the dross that they fund, and they will still try to promote extremely average, unoriginal, and voiceless productions across the globe as 'New Irish cinema'. As one audience member recently asked on RTE's The Frontline: 'There has to be an alternative?'