STATE OF PLAY 2013?

With our luvvies over in Cannes at the Irish pavilion air-kissing each other it's time Shoot the Cabbage did a check on the current state of our cinema! Let's see, where are we these days?

Home productions
Lots and lots of stuff getting made but it's not very good. Even better, several recent Film Board titles never got released!

Outside productions
These seem to favour Northern Ireland now. Less work for the techies and union heads. Most of those people now work on the big TV productions here.

Distribution
Most Irish movies don't get a full release here. The ones who do are gone after a few weeks. Blame the multiplexes for showing the same Hollywood rubbish as each other! Will future Irish cinema only be available to watch on Vimeo/Volta?

DVDs
With XtraVision closing shops everywhere the only places now to buy Irish movies are the small shops in Dublin: Celtic Note/Tower Records/Golden Discs. Remember this: back in the 1990s lots of Irish movies were forgotten overnight when VHS went. Will the same happen again once DVDs go?

Talent
We don't have any! Maybe in animation and the shorts but certainly no new talent in direction. Only two names: Lenny Abrahamson and Ivan Kavanagh. The former overexposed and the latter underexposed! As for the rest: very mixed, maybe Rebecca Daly and Gerard Barrett are the future ones to watch?

Box office
Forget it. Irish movies do not make money. Unless it's a fluke like Once which did well abroad but not here or Man about dog which did well here but not abroad. The next hit should be the follow-up to The guard. Even the Brits don't like our films (though the Mrs Brown's boys movie could change that?)

Non-Film Board stuff
The 'Wild cards' as the Galway Film Fleadh call these! Mostly interesting but nothing special. It's good that this stuff gets made but most titles are difficult to see. Also, they're mostly bland and uninteresting. Surely the point of making a cheap feature is to do something different to what our Film Board funds?

Genre
Thankfully very few IRA movies or miserable dramas set in the 1950s anymore. Science-fiction seems to be getting popular and youth films are too. What's really missing is stuff like: social realism, road movies, black comedies, satire, psychodramas, noir, and dialogue-driven movies set in one location. These genres require real talent so no wonder we make so many horror films!