Both the Dingle Film Festival and the Irish Film Board have launched competitions seeking proposals for Irish Language Short Films. The winning applicant of the Dingle Film Festival’s Físín competition will be given a cash prize and free equipment hire whilst two winners of the Irish Film Board’s Gearrscannáin scheme will win funding for their respective shorts.
Físín
The Dingle Film Festival has launched ‘Físín’, a competition wherby filmmakers are invited to submit a short film proposal in the Irish language. The competition has a cash prize fund of €5,000 and €1,000 worth of lighting equipment hire sponsored by Cian de Buitléar’s company, Teach Solais.
Five filmmakers will be selected to travel to the next Dingle Film Festival which opens on St. Patrick’s day 2011. Each of the five will be treated as festival guests and will be given the opportunity to pitch their proposal to a panal and a live audience in The Phoenix Cinema during the festival. The judging panel includes cinematographer Eamon de Buitléar (I Went Down); writer Louise Ní Fhiannachta (Seacht); local writer Marina Ní Dhubháin (An Gaeilgeoir Nocht) and head of Ealain Na Gaeltahta, Micheál Ó Fearraigh.
The event, the brainchild of festival sponsor, Tor Cotton, has been put together by the festival team to encourage writing of film scripts in the Irish language. Tor spoke about the idea recently, saying: “Just as I am shy to speak and thus progress my Irish, it may be that others are cautious about taking the risk to develop their films through Irish. However unlike my toe in the water of the language, the risk of making a bad film is equal in either tongue, I hope to speak more Irish and to see more films ‘as Gaeilge’. It seemed a logical conclusion to be constructive rather than critical and set up a competition to encourage film making through Irish.”
The winning pitch at the festival will receive €3,000 cash prize and €1,000 worth of rental lighting equipment and will return to Dingle with their finalised film in 2012. Four of the pitches will receive a cash prize of €500 and each filmmaker will receive a personalised commemorative leather notebook designed by Conor Holden.
The ‘Físín’ competition is aimed at people who combine a special interest in film alongside a commitment to the Irish language. The festival is keen to see proposals from all local dialects. This opportunity is open to professional and amateur filmmakers of any age. The application form is available to download at www.dinglefilmfestival.com. The closing date for entries is 31 January 2011. The fifth installment of the Dingle Film Festival will take place in March 2011, opening on March 17th and running until Sunday the 20th March 2011.
Gearrscannáin
The Irish Film Board is currently accepting applications for the group’s new short film scheme, ‘Gearrscannáin’. The new scheme has been introduced with an aim of producing Irish language short films that will appeal to a general audience.
The scheme is further looking to encourage fresh, new directorial voices willing to take risks, challenge audiences and introduce them to interesting and moving themes. All films should also be able to be rated for an under 15 audience.
Two shorts will be selected from those submitted with a maximum budget of €10,000 per film. Submitted shorts should be approximately eight minutes in length and must be shot in a high quality digital format. All applications must furthermore be original stories written in the Irish language and short films already submitted to the IFB in English will not be eligible. This scheme will be primarily distributed on-line. The deadline for Gearrscannáin is Friday 17th December 2010
All applications should be sent to: Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board, Queensgate, 23 Dock Road, Galway More information about the scheme along with detailed guidelines and application forms are available to read on www.irishfilmboard.ie
