INTERESTING IRISH TIMES ARTICLE

On Film Board chairman James Morris in yesterday's newspaper. Gives away a lot of IFB thinking too. He said 'films need money and lots of it'. That's the nonsense that is responsible for dozens of bad Irish films. A sign of a great director is that he (or she) didn't need a lot of money to make a good movie. Most world class directors have made at least one great film on a low budget. Some has spent their careers making films this way. The article notes how little Irish films make at the box office. The reason is simple: making films that are neither fully commercial or arty will always fail at the box office. They have no audience. Then Morris says Irish films seem to do better on TV than in the cinema. Wonder why that is? Maybe because most Irish films are better suited to the small screen? Then he goes on about the success in Denmark and Lars Von Trier. The only Irish film director that has any similarity to Von Trier is Terry McMahon and look how he got treated by the Irish media and film establishment last year! One thing that he got spot on is that if an Irish film fails (as in a bad movie) it's the director's fault. Not the script the director. We just don't have enough talented directors. Too many Irish directors reply on the script, financial support, crew, casting to make a good movie. It's never their own fault that their films are dire.