Why the Irish film industry is in an upbeat mood

The Irish film industry is in buoyant mood thanks to the international success of a slew of locally produced titles and increased investment in the development of homegrown talent.

Yorgos Lanthimos’s multiple award-winner The Favourite was co-produced by Anglo-Irish company Element Pictures, six Screen Ireland-funded titles made their world premieres at Sundance and Lance Daly’s Irish Famine-set thriller Black ’47 was a hit at the local box office with a gross of $2m ($1.8m).

Production activity has doubled in the last four years and there is a determination throughout the industry that practical and fiscal steps are put in place to ensure the industry’s longevity and that Ireland and Irish talent is well placed to take advantage of the global increase in the demand for content.

Producer Ed Guiney of Element Pictures suggests the industry must establish a firm bedrock. “There’s a real argument to look at how we develop film and whether we should be putting significantly more resources into development than we are at the moment as an industry,” he says.

“In a world where there’s so much demand for content, it then behoves you to get your development projects in as good a shape as possible. You’re in a much stronger position going out into the world if you’ve got something that’s really well developed and really compelling with great talent attached.”

The Irish Film Board was relaunched last year as Screen Ireland to reflect its growing remit across film, animation and TV. “We’re now working on the first round of applications for TV drama production funding and it’s very exciting to see that development as part of what Screen Ireland is doing,” says outgoing CEO James Hickey, who is stepping down from his post in August.

Désirée Finnegan, who is presently Warner Bros UK’s senior vice president, theatrical marketing and publicity EMEA, based in London, is taking over. Irish-born Finnegan’s appointment is a reflection of Screen Ireland’s outward-looking ambitions. As the country’s lead body for the screen sectors, one of the organisation’s priorities is to support and enhance Ireland’s position as a competitive international filming location.

“We do have the [Section 481] tax incentive, which is important to production, and we do have the studios,” Hickey explains. “What we also have to look to is expanding and improving all those facilities and services.”

The long game

Screen Ireland is working with national training and development resource Screen Skills Ireland and other bodies to sustain the best possible levels of skills progression and enhancement. Screen Ireland has introduced a development under Section 481, where projects with an eligible expenditure over $2.2m (¤2m) are required to produce a skills progress plan approved by Screen Ireland, to advance the skills of those working on the relevant production.

As well as its Section 481 32% tax credit, there is now a 5% regional uplift (subject to EU approval), which means the credit is worth 37% in regional areas of Ireland. The Irish government recently announced the extension of 481 to 2022.

Along with the establishment of the WRAP (Western Region Audiovisual Producers) Fund to support projects filming in the west of Ireland, these incentives aim to stimulate further growth in the sector. The establishment of Troy Studios in the mid-western city of Limerick has already attracted international production to the region in the form of Syfy series Nightflyers.

Following the prolific use of Kerry’s Skellig Michael and other Irish locations in Lucasfilm and Disney’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens and follow-up The Last Jedi, Ireland is attracting a wide variety of non-Irish originated projects. Recent international features to shoot in the territory include Eon Productions’ The Rhythm Section, starring Blake Lively, and Malgorzata Szumowska’s English-language thriller The Other Lamb, starring Raffey Cassidy, which shot in County Wicklow earlier this year and is set up as an Ireland-Belgium co-production.

Additionally, Epic Pictures and Fantastic Films’ Sea Fever, directed by Neasa Hardiman, shot in 2018, while Bron Studios and A24’s historical fantasy Green Knight, directed by David Lowery and starring Alicia Vikander, filmed in the mid-west Tipperary region, Dublin and Wicklow earlier this year.

On the local production front, Phil Sheerin’s The Winter Lake is a gothic, coming-of-age story produced by Dublin-based Tailored Films that shot recently in Sligo, while Phyllida Lloyd’s Herself is now shooting in Dublin. Co-written (with Malcolm Campbell) and starring Ireland’s Clare Dunne, it is produced by Element and Sharon Horgan’s Merman and co-financed by BBC Films. Element’s TV adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People, directed by Lenny Abrahamson for BBC Three, is gearing up to shoot in Sligo and Dublin this summer.

Widening appeal

Buoyed by Element’s international success, several other Irish production companies are building prolific production slates. Producer Macdara Kelleher of Fastnet Films, whose credits include Black ’47, which used a revenge thriller narrative to tell the story of the Irish Famine, believes a new generation of filmmakers is now tapping into genre and telling Irish stories with international appeal.

“Irish filmmakers have always made genre films but I feel a shift in terms of bringing an Irish spin to it, finding your own unique space, your Irish voice, but also inhabiting genre and feeling that it could easily work at an international level,” he says. “There’s so much content out there at the moment that the more you can define something the easier it is to sell and maybe try and find some surprises within that genre.”

Producer John Keville of Savage Productions, who has co-produced European projects including Rebecca Daly’s Good Favour, Lee Cronin’s The Hole In The Ground and Brendan Muldowney’s Pilgrimage, suggests Ireland is perfectly placed to co-produce. “It comes down to the Irish crews, the locations, [the] English language and the tax credits,” he says. “When you look at the representation of Irish talent in film at the international festivals like Sundance and Toronto every year, there is a genuine awareness of how many Irish films seem to have become very visible. And it comes from every part of the industry.”

Katie Holly of Blinder Films agrees Ireland is thriving as an international co-production partner. “We’ve brought in directors to work on co-productions like Whit Stillman [Love & Friendship] and Sophie Fiennes [Grace Jones: Bloodlight & Bami]. They’ve just been so impressed with the level and quality of the crews here — not just in production but also in post-production. We’ve got amazing colourists. Visual effects, certainly in the last five years, has really developed. There are companies that are making great strides.”

Rebecca O’Flanagan of Treasure Entertainment, who produced John Butler’s US-set Papi Chulo, which premiered at Toronto in 2018, is enthused by the possibilities offered by the TV drama boom. “Production companies are looking toward both film and television, and becoming about content. There’s a transferability of talent from one medium to another,” she says. “There are a number of generations of well-trained, hungry, professional filmmakers out there who always have an extra kind of zeal and commitment to product that is Irish — and is ambitious.”