Arthouse institution reeling in the years
THE Irish Film Institute celebrates 20 years in Temple Bar in Dublin this year. Throughout September it is running a series of special events and film screenings.
Tomorrow and Sunday sees an ‘open weekend’ at the institute’s three-screen cinema. Film fans can avail of free tickets to a host of movies, among them classics like Singin’ in the Rain, cult fare like Freaks, and seminal European films such as Bicycle Thieves.
In its mix of arthouse and the classical, as well as more mainstream fodder like When Harry Met Sally, the open weekend programme is indicative of how much the institute welcomes film lovers of every complexion.
“In our programming we are constantly trying to find the right balance between films that are accessible and films that appeal to the purist,” says IFI director Ross Keane. “You do get the claims every so often that the IFI is elitist. Others say, ‘oh, everything you show has subtitles, and I don’t like subtitles.’ But the idea is to have a breadth of programming.
“You have to throw open the doors. And something like an open weekend is about that. It throws open the doors to people who may not otherwise give us a chance and it rewards our regular customers with a chance to see two days of cinema for free.”
Keane was appointed IFI director in April, following four years in public affairs at the institute. Before that, he spent six years with the Dublin Theatre Festival. He is now the head of an organisation that — while celebrating 20 years in Temple Bar — actually stretches as far back as 1943 when the National Film Institute was set up by Archbishop John Charles McQuaid.
Part of the institute’s mission in those days was to combat a perceived assault on Catholic values by Hollywood, but its chief activity was the production and nationwide distribution of film materials — largely cultural or educational in key. For many decades these were sent to schools and other local organisations, and included films commissioned by government to approved material from outside the island.
In 1982, the body re-anointed itself the Irish Film Institute. This was an era when film production in Ireland — for so long a potted, fits-and-starts sort of affair — had finally found some meagre life-blood with the establishment of the first Irish Film Board in 1980. Meanwhile, film historians such as Kevin Rockett, and filmmakers like George Morrison and Liam O’Leary, were strenuously arguing that Ireland’s film history, however disjointed, should be acknowledged by the state, and that the preservation of film footage — shot both by professionals and amateurs alike — was of huge cultural significance.
The Irish Film Institute became a fulcrum for these debates, and it came to adopt a three-pronged remit: exhibition, preservation, and education. The exhibition strand commenced with the establishment of the IFI’s own cinema in 1992. In many respects it is the ‘public face’ of the institute, the means by which it achieves one of its chief objectives — the promotion of film culture in Ireland.
“I think the promotion of film culture is where we excel, really,” says Keane. “It’s not solely about putting on films, it’s also about the other events we build around those films. Things are contextualised. Film seasons are arranged. The filmmakers come along to participate. It becomes, for film enthusiasts, the place where they can go to talk about film.”
The IFI’s education policy, meanwhile, has continued to evolve. The results of a project called Film Focus are due to be released in a few weeks. The project has seen the IFI working with the Department of Education and the NCCA (the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment) to tease out a coherent policy for film education in Irish schools.
“Years ago everyone went on about literacy and the importance of reading, writing, and arithmetic,” says Keane, “but it has changed now, as the world has changed, and media literacy and digital literacy is key.”
Preservation, meanwhile, has been perhaps the IFI’s greatest feat. When the IFI moved into its home in an old Quakers building in Temple Bar in 1992, it brought the institute’s own library holdings — assembled from many decades of producing and circulating film — into controlled vaults on-site.
This became the basis for the Irish Film Archive, and over the years the IFI has continued to add to its rich stock. Among the collections housed in the vaults are the negatives for the long-running landmark television series Radharc as well as many much prized ‘home movie’ submissions from the public. These continue to stream in.
In addition, the IFI’s archive hosts treasured film prints from the history of movie production in Ireland, as well as production notes, stills and promotional materials. A tantalising peek at Neil Jordan’s donation to the archive reveals a sketch of Daniel Day-Lewis as Lestat in Interview with the Vampire. The role was eventually played by Tom Cruise.
For a number of years now the IFI has in place an arrangement with the Irish Film Board and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland whereby every film or TV production made with their input must have its materials submitted to the IFI archive.
Kasandra O’Connell is the head of the Irish Film Archive. She and a team fully catalogue and store the many film materials that come their way, while arranging access to these materials.
They also digitise footage when it is required for the IFI’s regular programme of archive material, as well as its recent ventures into commercial release (eg the popular GAA Gold box-sets).
Though it does receive significant funding from the Arts Council, the Irish Film Archive — unlike arts collections such as the National Library and the National Museum — does not have the status of a national cultural institution.
This is something which has positives and negatives, says O’Connell.
“The collection is an independent organisation and we’re very proud of that and we want to retain that independence,” she says. “When you see what’s happening in terms of other national organisations, where there are threats of amalgamation or they’re being told they need to be more commercial, we don’t have to worry about that.”
Nevertheless, she says, the IFI would appreciate more concerted support of the archive from the government. “If there is even a vague resentment it’s more that the historical and cultural significance of film isn’t recognised by the state in the same way as other media and art-forms,” she says.
In the future, O’Connell would like to see a considerable amount of material from the collection be made available online. “We actually are looking far more at our online presence,” she says. “The idea is to have samples from the particular collections with a description of the material, and information about where the collection came from.”
At the moment, however, with its limited resources, the key objective of the Archive remains the same. “Preservation, preservation, preservation,” she says. “It’s the core of what we do.”
* The IFI Open Weekend runs tomorrow and Sunday. Further information: www.ifi.ie/openweekend
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