The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland will sponsor the Best Drama category at this year’s IFTA Awards, it has been announced.
The BAI, the body responsible for the regulation of broadcasting in Ireland, has sponsored the category twice before.
The Best drama nominees are ‘Game of Thrones’, which was shot in Northern Ireland and had a number of Northern Irish cast and crew on set; ‘Love/Hate’, which received its highest ratings yet when broadcast on RTÉ One in 2012; ‘The Borgias’, directed by Neil Jordan and starring Jeremy Irons, and ‘Titanic: Blood & Steel’, which starred Chris Noth, Neve Campbell and Liam Cunningham, and was shot in Dublin last year.
The BAI has funded over 20 projects nominated at this year’s IFTA Awards. These include all four Special Irish Language nominees, and a number of television projects across Acting, Directing and Craft categories.
Michael O’Keeffe, chief executive of the BAI said: “The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) is delighted to once again partner with IFTA to showcase the rich talent, creativity and dedication that exists in the Irish film, television and animation sectors.
“A key strategic objective of the BAI is to implement funding schemes which support the production of high quality programming. Drama is an important aspect of this objective and we are delighted to support this category which recognises the very best of Irish drama. We are also happy to see a number of projects that received production funding from the BAI through the Broadcasting Funding Scheme – Sound & Vision II being recognised and nominated for Awards in other categories.”
In 2012, the BAI offered a total of €14m in funding across four rounds of Sound & Vision II. BAI-funded projects were victorious at last year’s IFTA’s include feature film ‘Stella Days’, TG4 series ‘Corp+Anam’ and the Lelia Doolan-directed documentary ‘Bernadette: Notes on a Political Journey’.
In 2013, the BAI will allocate up to €13 m in funding to the Irish film and television industry, and will also launch a Broadcast Archive Scheme, which will offer broadcasters funding to archive their back catalogues.
The Irish Film & Television Academy’s chief executive Áine Moriarty said: “IFTA’s partnership with the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland is a vital part of the Academy’s partnership programme with the industry, which enables us to deliver the annual Awards, now in its significant 10th year. BAI has shown support to IFTA since its inaugural year in 2003, and we gratefully acknowledge their support of our work.”
The 2013 IFTA Awards take place at the Convention Centre in Dublin on February 9. A full list of this year’s nominees can be found here.
