WIFTA AWARDS 2009

WIFTA AWARDS 2009

The results for the inaugural West of Ireland Film & Television Awards (WIFTA) were announced last night at a glitzy ceremony in the fashionable Cluain Mhuire building in Galway. The event was a massive success and there's already a buzz about next year's WIFTAs. Yes, we can confirm, this will become an annual event.

The Fashion Award goes to Nicky Fennell aka Ratboy for his pioneering hobo chic look, combining mohair sweater with tattered jeans to create a unique effect which shook the fashion industry to its core.

Best Education Officer goes to Linda O'Sullivan, affectionately known to many as the 're-education officer' for her unique combination of Mao Tse Tung's teachings and use of Eisensteinian propaganda techniques in the inculcation of students.

The Diplomacy Award. Inspired by the Nobel Peace prize, this award aims to encourage greater understanding amongst the contrary group known as Irish film-makers. For his tireless efforts to promote peace within the film-making community, his exemplary and oft-noted lightness of touch in dealing with tense situations in the editing room, his diplomatic and philosophical approach to the art of film-making, the 2009 WIFTA diplomacy award goes to Paddy O'Connor.

The Diligent Worker Award. What we look for in this category is excellence in the field of showing up for work day after day, someone who's not in the habit of pulling hangover-induced sickies on a regular basis. And the winner is Jean Maxwell.

The 'Twinkliest Eyes' Award should have gone to Johhny White but compere James Finlan controversially took it for himself when Johnny was a no-show. This is currently the subject of an internal inquiry.

The George Mitchell Award for most successful ex Film & Video Co-op worker honours Senator George Mitchell's tireless efforts to bring together the Film Centre with the radical and left-leaning Film & Video Co-op. And the winner is Nuala Broderick.

The Cultural Diversity Award aims to promote a greater understanding with our neighbours in developing regions. This year it goes to Pat Collins from the People's Republic of Cork.

The Hunkiest Filmmaker Award honours Galway's hunkiest filmmaker. This year it goes to local filmmaker (and part-time hunk) Pat Comer.

If you'd like to be considered for next year's hunkiest filmmaker award, contact us atgfcparty@gmail.com. If you are under 5'10”, please do not apply as rejection may cause offence.

An Interview with Kevin Liddy

by Stephanie Miller, New York Times correspondent

Kevin Liddy is an enigma. I ponder this as I wait outside La Cocina, an obscure Dominican grocery store on the southwest corner of Houston/Mott. I'd met Liddy before so why was I nervous? This is a job, I remind myself. This is work. So, why did I spend two hours making myself up for this interview? Why did I stammer like a nervous young debutante when Liddy returned my call? Why was I now shivering in a little Prada skirt, Valentino top and high white stilletos on a cold December night in New York?

Of course, if you'd met Liddy, you'd understand. Described by Norman Mailer as "a lion of a man, brooding with sheer masculine energy", Susan Sontag on the other hand talked of his "feline, almost feminine grace" with longtime friend Gore Vidal enigmatically referring to him as "a perfect lady". Again, if you'd met Liddy, you'd understand that these seemingly conflicting descriptions are somehow not contradictory. Before I have time to resolve the mystery, a cab pulls up and Liddy is standing in front of me. Clad in his trademark Armani suit with beret and eye-patch, he cuts a striking figure. "You made it" he says, as if I had any choice. Of course I made it. This is Kevin Liddy after all.

He swans into the store and orders for both of us in perfect Spanish. "Eggplant and pork stew okay by you babe?", he winks at me as he orders. Five minutes later, we're heading up broadway in a cab and Liddy launches into an impromptu interview. Ignoring my first question, he talks about the Galway Film Center, who celebrate their 21st birthday this year: "I seem to remember teaching on a course- the first course?- in 1988 which produced a pop video for The Little Fish, a local Galway band. And the following year there was Pat Comer directing Bert O Lucky- the same Pat who won a deserved IFTA for the Des Bishop series on the Irish language this year- and I think I was assigned to shoot it as a more fruitful way of guaranteeing there would be footage to cut!"

He's on his way to a reading of his new play In a Treaty City, Broken with Harvey Keitel and I've got about five minutes to get my story. I try to get him to talk about working with Keitel but he keeps bringing the conversation back to the Galway Film Center: "My abiding memory is more of a feeling than events themselves. And that feeling was a sense of community, naiveté to be sure, but above all a desire to learn, to make it one's own. During this time I was often asked to teach film theory, editing, script writing, etc and I felt at the time- and still do- that if we even produced more discerning viewers, if we could take the passivity out of watching films that would be reward in itself".

We pull up outside the Atlantic Theater. My heart misses a beat. Is it over already? I try to bring up the subject of his controversial translation of Ulysses into Greek but he's like a dog with a bone: "I was very involved with Filmbase in Dublin at the time, on the board and in training, and also teaching in Rathmines. On one of my teaching weekends away in Galway I remember Paddy O Connor taking me aside to discuss a documentary on his father and his greyhounds. Many years later that idea became The Gamble, an award winning hour long documentary funded by RTE and the IFB. And I would meet many ex-students over the years who got jobs on films such as The Field or later in Concorde Anois - the Golden Harvest of the west!"

I have to admit, I've never heard of this obscure film center he talks of but I gather Galway is a small town in the United Kingdom. Somehow, though, I'm captivated by his charm and dynamic energy. With a seductive glint in my eye, I ask him about the women in his life. He leans over, puts his hand on my knee and returns my gaze: "Singling out people is often times invidious but it would be churlish of me not to mention the guiding hand of Lelia Doolan who seemed to be everywhere, encouraging, baiting, relentless. Some things never change. Congratulations on 21years, to the no guts no glory brigade, to the men and women who crashed on couches to get the effin' thing made. And all without an administrators salary to go home to". He removes his hand from my knee and looks at his Rolex - "Gotta go babe. Can't keep Harvey waiting".

I watch as he disappears into the December snow. I feel seduced. I fell cheap; used. And already I'm wondering about when I'll see him again.

Kevin Liddy's new play In a Treaty City, Broken opens in the Atlantic Theater, February 23rd.

© New York Times, 2009

More photos, including rare still from Atonement

More photos on Flickr, including the famous 'floating priest's head' scene from Atonement. To this day, special effects experts are baffled by how the striking effect was achieved. Remember, this was in the days before CGI.

Trivia: According to the director, the scene was inspired by the Rembrandt painting "Still life with picture of Christ and floating priest's head".

http://www.flickr.com/photos/34031128@N03/

If you have pictures, send them to: gfcparty@gmail.com

EXCLUSIVE!: FILM WEST EDITOR SLAMS FELLINI

Shamed former Film West editor Pat Collins yesterday hit out at Federico Fellini, claiming the late Italian film director was "pretentious and crap". In a no-holds-barred interview with the GFC blog, he also bared all with tales of drunken Film Board parties and talked frankly about his split personality.

Tempermental Director
I met Pat Collins in the foyer of the Savoy hotel in London on a cold January night. I had waited weeks for this interview, having set up numerous dates. The famously temperamental director and former Film West editor would agree and then finally cancel the interview at the last moment. So, here I find myself face to face with the man himself and I have to pinch myself and ask myself is this actually happening. He gets straight to the point:

Pretentious and Crap
"I have an old diary from 1989 and looking back at it now, I notice I had the habit of documenting which films I'd seen. I had a star system in place which I'm sure was really handy for readers other than myself. In the diary for 1989, I've given Dances with Wolves 9 out of 10 and thought it 'really excellent'", exudes Collins as he taps another Marlboro Light out of its packet, his fourth in as many minutes. Then he goes on to blast his one time friend Fellini: "One night later I saw Fellini's La Dolce Vita and considered it 'pretentious and crap' - 3 out of 10".

Split Personality
In person, I'd have to say Collins is not as handsome as his famously doctored publicity photos might suggest and his social graces leave much to be desired. Knocking back what must be his fifth double-scotch, he recalls his time at the Galway Film Centre: "My first contact with the Galway Film Centre was a seven weekend film foundation course. I was delighted and a little challenged when my script was one of the ones chosen to shoot. As is often the case with first scripts, it involved a young man who had a split personality. The young man in question had to stare into the mirror in utter turmoil and utter - 'Why don't you just get out of my f***ing head'?" Several clients are now staring at Collins as he repeats the phrase out loud, shouting out profanities for all to hear.

Bare Feet
"After some great years on the dole, I eventually ended up editing Film West magazine. I remember the office was always full of life. Celine in the middle directing traffic. There was one phone between everyone in the office and that was a payphone. In another corner, there was one Mac classic which everyone had to share. All the articles for Film West were sent in by post or fax so they all had to be retyped, very slowly - the 90s equivalent of "We went to school in our bare feet" muses a by now intoxicated Collins.

Scandal
He has the discomfiting habit of tapping one forecfully on the chest with his index finger to emphasise his points - not exactly the most endearing habit but such is the nature of genius and I don't complain. I'm hoping if I humour him, I might get him to talk about the 'cash for good reviews' scandal which plagued the Film West offices in the mid nineties and culminated in Collins' swift departure (though not without a generous golden handshake).

Hyphenating and Arguing
It's late in the day and Collins is slurring now: "Film West was a collective effort with other staff members suggesting and encouraging and sometimes typing too. And luckily I shared a house with four proof-readers who loved nothing more than staying up all night parsing and hyphenating and arguing the finer points of grammar till the sun came up - "i before e except after c", etc... He's beginning to not make sense and I try to wrap up the interview but he shouts me down.

Drunken Film Board Parties
"The GFC was in High Street at the time so due to its slap-bang location, it was always a great place for people dropping in and out", shouts Collins. "Dave Power, Johnny White, Nicky Fennell, Mick Ruane, James Finlan, Mike Brennan, Peter Meagher, Mark Byrne, Pat Lavelle, Donal Haughey, Paddy O'Connor, Barra de Bhaldraithe, and many many more, staff and members intertwined. And the weekday talk was usually extended to tipsy Saturday nights in Taylors on Dominic Street. Drunken film quizzes in the Warwick. And even more drunken Film Board parties every Christmas. Who remembers those?" "Plus ça change", I muse to myself.

Ancient Curse
"Looking back one of the great things about those times was the freedom from professionalism. Low expectations are always a great comfort", slurs Collins in a telling comment before finally slipping off into slumber and with that, I make my escape. They say you should never meet your heroes and for once I can say I know what they mean. The Chinese have an ancient curse which says: 'may you live in interesting times'. Perhaps it should read 'may you do an interview with Pat Collins'.

Pat Collins' memoir: Film West: The Lost Years is published by Picador and available in all good bookshops.

Photos

More photos up on the Flickr page.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/34031128@N03/?saved=1

If anyone has any photos that they want to add, send them to <gfcparty@gmail.com>

Steve Woods - The Patient Teacher...

Hi All,

Here is another FUNFOOD picture. There's me, Steve, explaining to a kid
for the 60th time what cut out animation is. Ciara is on the camera with
Aisling directing and Declan getting "athmos". In the end Declan did a
catchy music piece. I don't know what happened to the documentary about
the making of the film Funfood(!!!!!). But the cartoon went on JoMaxi -
Aisling brought two of the kids up to RTE and they introduced it. I
remember her saying that the kids filled up on sweets, fanta and crisps
and one got sick on the train back! Otherwise a great success. I remember
it won something at the Cork Junior Film Festival - which doesn't exist
anymore...

See yes Saturday,
Steve.

An excerpt from Lelia Doolan's epic poem: 'Blur'

'Tis all a Blur.

GFC and the Fleadh shot out of the womb around the same time and have been joined at the hip ever since. Virtually.

Images: clattering up the stairs at New Docks inventing reasons to apply for money from the Organs of the State. For film, for what? Fillum, yes. Ah god, ye're mad.

Shocked faces at extensive use of colourful language on the phone (when we got one, thanks to Celine who Knew Someone) especially from a poor gently-bred person from Renmore who came to do a Work Placement -- thought she was in with the loonies of Mahon.

Dust that grew during the night and clogged the lungs. Windows that let in slicing gales of wind.

Bockety tables and chairs, mostly robbed. Never enough to go around. Someone always losing the key.

Mugs with the remains of fag ends, caffeine, tannin stains. One cold water tap. Call this a lavatory? Battalions of cartons of turning milk on the windowsill.

Unlimited blather; barrelsfull of ideas; meetings all over the place, democracy slowing everything down. How will we? Who will? Where will we?

Never, never, never -- Will we?

The Arts Centre gave the Fleadh a broom cupboard on the return in Dominick Street -- same system of mugs and loos and turning milk. One telephone for what seemed to be twenty five people.

One table. Hundreds of notions. No money.

Managers, directors, box office wallahs, drivers, printers, interior decorators, graphic artists, writers of blurbs -- created overnight. Never stopped to think: could we?

Openers of bank accounts; amassers of camera equipment, editing machines, totters-up of the cash, balancers of books -- emerged simultaneously. Even the start of a wage for one or two. People who didn't know they could, just did.

The Arts Council was small, those days. Mostly let people get on with it.

The Corrib Tiger-Baby: the move to HIgh Street; an actual room! Wait: rooms with carpets on the floors! ah God -- and a landlord downstairs, Colm, with a permanently startled look.

Enough space for small producers, for a MEDIA antenna (wha'?)

Darrina shouting on the street; Celine pouring oil, finding solutions, not sending for the Guards, doing twenty jobs at once. People actually making films, editing them, showing them! Regular (reluctant/recalcitrant) group practices of Singin' In The Rain numbers rockin' the floors in preparation for the Fleadh's season of musicals

Well.

The Big Time! Move-Don't Move to Cluain Mhuire. Mega-debates and ructions. Bored Meetings. Trial marriage with GMIT; Big Meetin's with The Nobs on the Dublin Road..

Arrangements and Contracts and Budgets and still the no-seat-in-his/her-pants and Yes We Will spirit.

More equipment: cameras, Final Cut Pro, Training Programmes. Godamighty...

Big Notions. Managers big and small; Claire and Liz and Anna -- debts and rescue packages; Tracy in on a white charger, sorting the men from the biys. Big Office Space, small office space. Actual chairs and actual real desks and Miriam and Cathy with the Fleadh next door, creating yearly chaos. Sé and Pete moseying along, reminding people of where the lens cap goes.

What about the members?

They're here. They've done more than they ever thought they could.

Than they never realised they could.

But they did. They do.

That's what it's all about

Blessed art thou, Declan, after all the Dames!

GFC.

Or whatever it's called. All a bit of a blur.

LD

Never Mind the GFC...Here's Eamonn Kelly

I was one of the trainees during the first year of what was then called the Film Resource Centre. I was involved in the production of the first Film West, a photocopy stone-age cut and paste affair involving scalpels and gum. I also worked closely with Aisling Prior on the short, Lottery which I’d forgotten about until I saw some stills on this site, and foostered around on Declan Gibbons’ short about a Beethoven bust coming alive. (A difficult effect to make convincing. I thought Declan was possibly mad.)

I wanted to be a writer, and the first thing I learned was that writers didn’t have a whole lot of prestige in film. I also learned that the expectation for produced work was something like once every ten years. So I took the rocky road to Theatre instead, encouraged by fair words from Bob Quinn on a short script I’d written.

I now regard my short time in the Film Resource Centre with fondness, but also with a small degree of regret that I wasn’t more appreciative of the opportunities on offer. I was a teenager of ’76, and still retained a bit of a punk mentality which manifested itself by challenging the ‘system’ and resenting ‘structures’, which, in my particular revolution, turned out to be the fledgling Film Centre, rather than say the Church or the Banks or the Government… or even RTE.

But that’s youth for you: you may be mistaken, but at least you are definitely mistaken. So, happy anniversary Film Centre, I knew you when you were little more than a gleam in Lelia’s eye, and now look at you with all your frills and glamour.

All the best to students past, present and future.

Eamonn Kelly

Photos

More photos on the Flickr Page for Best Picture.

If anyone has stills from films that were made through Galway Film Centre, send them into us and wecan put them onto the Flickr page:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/34031128@N03/?saved=1

James Finlan Atones For His Sins (sort of)...

I was sitting in a bar in Soho with my friend Anthony, when Anthony dropped the bombshell: “Atonement is the worst Irish film ever made”. At first I thought he was joking – trying to get a rise out of me. But then it hits me. He's not joking. As my American friend Rick would say – he's as serious as a heart attack. “Have you seen it?”, Anthony persists. I shake my head and stare down into my pint of Old Speckled Hen. “Is that the time? Must dash”, I splutter as I grab my coat and stumble out into the rain. It was – to quote the Pogues song – a rainy day in Soho but I assure you the dirty London rain was no match for the torrent of tears which flowed from my eyes.

Lest there be any confusion, I'm not referring to the multi award-winning adaptation of Ian McEwan's fine novel. Alas, no. I refer to a far less worthy effort - a short black and white film whose release was to shake the Galway film-making community to its very core. You see, the thing is: I directed Atonement. And Anthony – a friend from the post-Atonement phase of my life was blissfully unaware of this fact. Of course he was unaware. Atonement was my dark secret and I wasn't going to tell anyone about it. But now my past had caught up with me. I could never escape it.

Ever since its premiere at the Galway Film Fleadh in 1992, it has followed me like a stalker. Not the kind of sexy female stalker one might secretly fantasise about. More like some sad anorak-wearing nerd with nothing better to do than constantly remind me that I am responsible for this blight on Irish culture. Well, the time has come to say it. Don't blame me for Atonement. Blame the Galway Film Centre.

There. I've said it. For it was the Galway Film Centre who awarded me the handsome sum of 700 pounds towards the making of said film. Yes, it was none other than Bob Quinn and Lelia Doolan who saw fit to finance this dubious venture under the script award scheme of what was then known as the Film Resource Centre. The fallout from the Atonement debacle was such that an extraordinary general meeting was called and the decision was made to rename the centre as the Galway Film Centre with immediate effect. Bob Quinn, who had now completely distanced himself from the film – proposed issuing a fatwa, Celine seconded and the vote was only narrowly defeated by a margin of three votes. Under advice from the Garda commissioner, I defected to Russia for a year.

And so, it's out in the open. I've come out of the proverbial closet which I've shared for the last 17 years with four hundred odd feet of 16mm black and white celluloid. And I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore. So, the next time you see me, before you consider bringing up the dreaded 'A' word; before you indulge in the noble Irish tradition of 'slagging', remember this: Slag me and you slag the Galway Film Centre. Condemn me and you condemn the Galway Film Centre. And you wouldn't want that on your conscience now, would you?

Johnny White's Random Memories...

I arrived all those years ago when the Film Centre was the Film Resource Centre but really just a drop in centre for the unemployed on High street. Could come full circle.

Random memories are smelly socks drying on the radiator while their (unnamed) owner cut his soft porn home movies, the sound of buskers from the street below interspersed with 'Buy the big issues don't be a cow man' (still not sure what he meant), Mark Joyce and his Illigitumus non carborundum (don't let the bastards grind you down according to him), RIVERS (Mark Kennedy growling at Niall about something), mama Celine dealing with our hangovers and broken hearts, hangovers and broken hearts, cutting Priesthunter with Paddy in the dungeon, 'Where's that Johnny Fuckin' WHITE' (Paddy being angry with me about something which I've forgotten...

Starting drinking over soup in Neachtains at 2 p.m. and going on....

Having more hair, no mortgage, no kids, no work, being overly romantic, sexually frustrated, impoverished and strangely happy...

I'm sure there's more and they'll all come up on the 21st...

The Ratboy speaketh...

Pictured: Ratboy's daughter

21 years eh?
Ae fond memories.

That Bolex in the picture taught me how to edit on the old Steenbecks by employing the tune from the old Wheetos advert as we fed 16mm celluloid onto the spools; "You put them in here, the Wheeto's go oh. oh. oh, oh, oh, oh ,oh and they come out here". You wouldn't get that in those trendy film schools today, I tell you. Now they'd just make you watch 'Eireville'! (And why, we all know 'Atonement' was much better James)

I came into the GFC via Lelia Doolan's Film Course in the Peader O'Donnell centre in the mid-eighties, which led to a group of us establishing a bolshie Film and Video Collective like something out of Citizen Smith which eventually merged with the GFC after many heated debates. First thing I remember working on was Pat Comer's GFC short film award winner 'Bert'O'Lucky', sharing sound duties with Declan Gibbons. Years later in a pub with Risteard Cooper I discovered that that was his big screen break! I had to go back and check the video and there he was; 'harried man in car'!
Simple times, not a mobile phone in sight and your biggest worry was that Lelia and Miriam would come harranguing you after you slept it out when you were meant to be on Film Fleadh duty... Now its the government harranguing us with all the integrity of Harold Shipman addressing doctors on medical ethics
Looking forward to the night and will do my bit in spreading the word...


Ratboy

Galway Film Centre is 21 years old...

We've been 21 years up and running here at the Galway Film Centre and to celebrate, we're having a birthday bash on the 21st of February at our premises in Cluain Mhuire.

The party kicks off at 8pm with food, drinks, dancing and plenty of surprises.

More details to come, including nominations for awards for members and staff, past and present. We haven’t decided on the award categories yet - we’re leaving that up to you. You can post your nominations in the comments column here.

You can also RSVP by emailing us and putting RSVP followed by your name in the subject line of the email. If you're not on the list, you can't get in.

See you there!

Our email address is gfcparty at gmail d0t c0m.



Picture: Spot the Bolex.


Thanks to the Irish Film Board for their kind donation towards this event.