Irish Films?

La nage counties, On Friday 19 April a twenty-four hour non-stop film show was held in Liberty Hall by Ireland's independent film makers. They are trying to draw attention to the denial of necessary resources for them to pursue their craft by the government of the twenty six CONTROL OF COMMUNICATIONS This is a political issue -- control of communications media and the film industry by big commercial interests and government's limited and highly selective funding, means that the mass of working people are daily subjected to a view of the world which all too often portrays those commercial interests, the interests of a capitalist society, as the only possible system for the western world, It's a system of communications that has never adequately portrayed the full picture of the nationalist struggle, the role of neo-colonialism in Ireland, the role of the church, or the position of women. Without an independent film industry encouraging new, young, small scale Irish films, we have even less chance of learning the political and cultural realities of Irish life, through a crucial medium that should be used positively, instead of being used to exploit GOVERNMENT PLANS The government is shortly to allocate £4 million towards a film industry in Ireland. Its de facto intentions are to spend most of this on foreign feature productions in Ardmore Studios. This studio has already spent £2 million of Irish taxpayers! money. NO IRISH FILM HAS EMERGED FROM THE There are 41 Irish independent film producers, In the past five years they have generated £10 million worth of films in this country, without formal government support. A truly independent Irish film output needs this £4 million and more; the marathon twenty-four hour film show has demonstrated that Irish skills deserve the available Irish funds before foreign feature productions.

CULTURAL DEPRIVATION AND CENSORSHIP Until there is a real socialist democracy in Ireland, film and television will always be dominated by clever, per suasive propaganda created through the use of extremely costly techniques -- propaganda of many forms -- programmes which uphold and celebrate the status quo --a status quo which means the oppression of women, the exploitation of labour, the acceptance of British imperialism. There will always be token gestures —- films and current affairs television that try to expose the problems of today, but in the present system only a handful of people have the final say in what the Irish public will see on large or small screen.

MAEVE McLOUGHLIN