NEWSTALK PANEL

The Wider Influence of Sport...

I'm tongue tied at the best of times, so being faced by the eloquent and intelligent forces that are Ken Early and Declan Lynch is probably not the best forum for me to be at my most articulate - but I gave it my best shot today on the Newstalk Panel hosted by the ever pleasant Ger Gilroy.

The (below) striking short doc - part of the ESPN 30 for 30 series - was the jumping off point for a discussion on the wider influence of sport in society. The film is about how Muhammad Ali came to the rescue of western hostages in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 1990.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8849155/the-latest-offering-new-30-30-documentary-series

As the most recent person (along with my brilliant colleague Aideen O’Sullivan) to have made a film about Ali (well, until they released the above short film) and certainly the most recent person who also happens to live close to the studio, I was wheeled in to give a few opinions on the subject.

You can listen to it on the Newstalk player as the first hour of Newstalk Sport today (Saturday 26 January).

http://media.newstalk.ie/

( The title of our film was When Ali Came to Ireland and it screened on RTE One in Ireland on January 1^st. We’re hoping that we’ll have the chance to broadcast it in other countries.

Here’s the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA8_th5nYBU )

While I never met the man himself, it’s pretty obvious to anyone who has read about Ali or has seen footage of him that he was a uniquely magnetic human being. Anyone that I’ve spoken to that was lucky enough to spend time with him attests to that but it was more than his magnetism that made him such an important figure.

The place of sport at the forefront of our consciousness is, in my opinion, a given (something that Declan Lynch argued quite strongly on the panel). During the discussion, I remembered that as part of my college studies I read some compelling anthropological papers that convincingly argued that because society has made human beings more individualised, sport has replaced our instinctive need to be part of a tribe.

A football team, like Man Utd for instance, can easily fill that void, providing us with tribal colours, brethren to unite with and a common foe to battle against (Man City - ha). It gives us the opportunity to go to war every weekend and behave in a way that the rest of our lives rarely provides. How often do we get a chance to scream and roar consistently at a screen and for it to be completely acceptable?

Try it at the cinema. 

And the figures bear out the notion that sport is a special obsession for us. Two of the three most watched television shows on Ireland last year covered live sports events (Katie Taylor’s Olympic final and the Ireland soccer team’s opener in the Euros).

The popularity of sport gives our athlete heroes the platform to be heard. Muhammad Ali (then called Cassius Clay) took the boxing world by storm and the combination of his fighting skills, looks and persona made the world take notice of him long before he controversially converted to Islam and refused the draft to Vietnam in the mid-60s. It was because he took those actions at the height of his fame and as new World Champion that they held such significance.

Ali was unique but he didn’t operate in a vacuum. The 1960s was a time of protest and he certainly wasn’t the only public figure to make sacrifices in that decade. The 60s seems like it was a culmination of sorts for the black community in fighting for their human rights in the US. In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat during the Alabama Bus Boycott and Martin Luther King’s influence was growing, perhaps culminating with his famous ‘Dream’ speech in 1963. All of this was before Ali’s actions in the mid to late 60s.

Even Ali’s famous line, “I ain’t got no quarrel with no Viet Cong… he never called me nigger” had a strange forerunner.

"Hitler didn't snub me – it was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram.”

Those are the words of Jesse Owens in 1936.

Both men (Ali and Owens), it seems, we’re rightly more concerned by the problems they faced in their home country. Owens was banned from running soon after his incredible four gold medal haul in the Berlin Olympics for trying to cash in on his success. He would never run in international competition again. While he lived in the same accommodation as his white teammates in Berlin 1936, Owens wasn’t treated so equitably back home. He was forced to use the freight elevator in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel when he was attending a victory reception back in New York. And Owens wasn’t invited to the White House or acknowledged by his own President despite being the star of the Olympic Games.

Ali followed in the footsteps of people like Owens, Parks and King. He was obviously influenced too by Malcolm X. And, you would think, he can only have been encouraged further by the solidarity act of John Carlos and Tommie Smith in 1968 when they raised gloved hands and bowed their heads in what came to be known as the Black Power Salute.

I mention all of this not to take anything away from Ali but more as a lead in to talking about athletes of today. The idea that sport should be kept separate from politics is often stated but when sport is so prevalent how is this possible? Sportspeople ignoring the ills of society and human rights problems are already being political by choosing to stay schtum.

Ali was attacked for the actions for which he is now lauded. Smith and Carlos were derided for the salute that is now so admired. Owens is criticised sometimes for not doing enough for human rights...

Avery Brundage was the head of US Olympic Sport who insisted on America attending the 1936 games where Owens' excelled. Brundage then withdrew two Jewish athletes from the US 100m Relay Team so as not to embarrass Hitler. Brundage always said that sport and politics should be kept separate. 

Brundage was the man who banned Owens in the aftermath of the 1936 games.

Brundage later became head of the IOC and banned Smith and Carlos after their salute in 1968. He was still in the job in Munich in 1972 and was the man who said the games must go on even after Israeli athletes were murdered. 

Sport and politics must be kept separate, said Brundage.

It’s just not possible, I think... sport and politics are intertwined. Sport has a massive impact on society and that can’t be ignored. 

I admire Kevin Prince Boateng for standing up to racists and I think footballers can be leaders in fighting racism and homophobia in society. They will no doubt be criticised by their contemporaries but perhaps some time in the future their actions will be acknowledged for having an impact. Today’s sportspeople might not have as many influential forerunners as Ali did but maybe they can look at the legend of Ali himself and take inspiration.

GOOD HOME TURF NEWS

We had some good news there a couple of weeks ago:

Home Turf won Best Short Documentary a the Kerry Film Festival!

We were delighted because we made a Kerry film - shot in Kerry, featuring Kerry people and produced by a Kerrywoman.


Our poster pic (above) even features a picture of a Kerryman - Aideen's dad... Mr. O'Sullivan.

We're really happy that the film is connecting. It's a simple film about cutting turf but we feel there are also a few more layers to it.

The juxtaposition of hand turf-cutting and machine methods visually tell the story of progress and we think, too, that the film reveals a certain type of masculinity that deserves celebration but is perhaps often overlooked.

With winter coming, the film really makes me long for a good turf fire. And a nice cup of tea!

More info on the film here:

http://www.hometurffilm.com/

LOOKING BACK AT THE BAILOUT

 The Bailout was a documentary I did last year while working in Prime Time that used eye-witness accounts to tell the story of how Ireland came to be in the EU/IMF financial programme.

It’s almost exactly a year since we made it and it reared it’s head again this week when it won Best Business Feature at the Smurfit Business Awards. Here’s a pic of reporter Robert Shortt picking up the award:

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/1119/two-rte-journalists-win-smufit-business-awards-business.html

It was a documentary that changed in form on a few ocassions during the making of it. At first, it was to be a shorter report that would allow in-studio discussion afterwards but halfway through filming an hour-long slot became available and suddenly we were under pressure to deliver a one-hour programme in a total of four-and-a-half-weeks. I think I had a pretty extreme look on my face for those few weeks!

I suddenly realised that I’d never done a full hour of interview-driven TV before. I’d done long documentaries driven by observational scenes and I had done plenty of short interview-based pieces but never a full hour. How to pace it? How many shots would I need?

So, I decided to resort to what I know... it was an unfolding story so I divided the documentary into scenes and thought about the relationship between those scenes and how they would drive the narrative on.

I wanted the documentary to work as a drama that had an “and then and then and then” flow with each scene being motivated by the last. I was working with the excellent and thorough reporter Robert Shortt and we both felt that we didn’t want commentary in the documentary and that really helped. Retrospective analysis would have interrupted the flow. We wanted the audience to stay in the moment and not to be pulled out of it by opinions.

We also had to think about how the reporter’s narration would work in that situation and I felt it was important to make sure that our interviewees revealed the important information, so we looked closely at each piece of voiceover to ensure that it didn’t give away the key information in the upcoming scene. If the audience knew what was coming up, why would they stay interested?

The Sunday Independent said the programme was “gripping” and hopefully that was a reflection of the way we approached it.

The documentary was on the RTE Prime Time website but seems to have disappeared today, so hopefully it'll reappear there soon.

EXCITING TIMES

In the last month or so there has been a flurry of activity. First, I was delighted to programme the IFI Dublin Documentary Festival, Stranger Than Fiction, which was opened by the sensational THE IMPOSTER. Director Bart Layton joined for a post film Q&A and he turned out to be a very sound man - staying until late as audience-members quizzed him about the film well into the night.

HOME TURF won the 'Man and Nature' award at Film Festival Della Lessinia in Italy and then screened again in Los Angeles last week.

LINK: http://www.iftn.ie/news/?act1=record&aid=73&rid=4285271&tpl=archnews&only=1

At the same time, BYE BYE NOW has had a bit of a revival and had its Irish television premiere on RTE. A week later it was selected to represent Ireland at the EU Film Festival in China where one film from each EU film will be screened.

LINK: http://www.thejournal.ie/video-film-disappearance-public-phoneboxes-ireland-620475-Oct2012/?utm_source=twitter_self

With all of the interest, we decided to put BYE BYE NOW up on YouTube:

LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agRwRf6JoyE&feature=player_embedded

SAVIOURS - a blast from the past - has been invited to screen at a film festival in Madison, USA and BLIND MAN WALKING might also be going stateside with a screening in New York for an event Mark Pollock, the film's star man, will be speaking at.

We've been busy this week working on the next film. The story of how Muhammad Ali came to fight in Ireland. The idea is to get it done for broadcast before Christmas. Wish us luck!

Recent Work

I haven't done this for a while but I intend to get a new site up and running very soon.

For now, here is some of the stuff I've been working on recently...

THE BAILOUT
A Primetime Special for RTE that explores how Ireland lost its economic sovereignty.
http://www.rte.ie/news/av/2011/1128/primetimespecial.html#

HOME TURF
A documentary for the Irish Film Board about the dying tradition of cutting turf by hand in rural Ireland. After debuting in Cork, the film recently had its International Premiere at Hot Docs, screened at  Krakow and will soon have its US Premiere at the AFI Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Festival.
www.hometurffilm.com

BYE BYE NOW
The little film that could, continues to be invited to screen all over the world after touring festivals successfully for the last two years or so, including winning at Silverdocs, Nashville and elsewhere.
www.byebyenowfilm.com

Film Ireland Galway Edition Editorial

It seems this industry of ours is rarely out of the news. Recent articles in major media both question and justify the continued support for Irish film by the public purse. The relevance and importance of Irish films differs depending what newspaper you pick up and with the economy continuing to struggle the pressure is increasingly on the film community to prove the investment is good value.

The argument put forward so often is that there was a type of Golden Age of Irish film in the early 1990s when films like My Left Foot and The Crying Game were winning Oscars and competing at the very highest level in the worldwide film industry. The same questions are asked time and time again. Where are the new Neil Jordans and Jim Sheridans? Why are filmmakers no longer punching above their weight in the way that actors and authors do? And, what is the point of investing in Irish film if it doesn’t compete at the highest level?

So how can we provide value for money, for this investment that the Irish public, via the goverment, passes to us?

It would be wonderful to turn a profit but that’s difficult in a world where more films than ever are being released and the bulk of the audience veer more towards blockbuster fayre and away from the kind of personal, complex tales that we tell best. And, anyway, even for the most famous filmmakers, profit can be elusive – there is no magic formula and the competition is fierce. Some say we should make bigger films so that we can ‘compete’ but what if they don’t succeed? Bigger failures are not something to aspire to.

All that we can offer financially is that we are doing our best. We will, as much as is humanly possible, sell our films, distribute them, convince people of their worth and return what we can to the pot. And we will push our films to the four corners of the globe in the hope that we can sell some kind of idea of Ireland and hope that somehow this feeds back into the exchequer in tourist dollars.

What can the Film Board do?

They can develop numerous talented, diverse voices that represent the full variety of Irish experience, they can investigate appropriate distribution strategies that give small films a chance of connecting with the right audience and they can seek out international partnerships that bring more money into Irish film and give our films more chance of spreading.

It seems to me that this is exactly what they are doing. At this transitional time in Irish film they deserve some credit for that.

Some of that talent that has come through recently is already punching above its weight, winning awards at major festvals and putting bums on seats in cinemas. Sweeping cuts would stunt the growth of the emerging filmmakers that might just be the next Neil Jordan. It’s easy to forget that The Crying Game was Jordan’s eighth film. Instead of looking backwards, let’s look forward to increasingly skilled filmmakers making more and better films of value and some that turn a profit.

Irish film does its best to represent those who fund it and it seems to me that films like Once, Kisses and His & Hers do that very well. This magazine will launch at on of the world’s great festivals, the Galway Film Fleadh, a traditional birthing place for new Irish films. Keep an eye out, you might just get a glimpse of the future.

Film Ireland Cannes Issue

When One hundred Mornings is shortly released, audiences will no doubt be wowed by the wonderful performances, the stunning photogphy and the subtle direction.

They won’t, for a moment, think about the budget. The film was originated under the Catalyst Scheme and was thus made for limited funds. Yet, it is good enough to stand beside any quality film out there. And it has – at festivals around the world and on release in the United States.

A couple of years ago at an Irish Film Board panel, one of the panellists was asked what had happened to the Micro Budget Scheme. The answer, only partially in jest, was that almost all of the films made here could be considered very low budget, so perhaps there was no need for a specific scheme.

I think we can sometimes get hung up on budgets but when a film like One Hundred Mornings, or His & Hers or The Fading Light comes along, we are reminded that films can be great films regardless of budget.

His & Hers, in particular was a fantastic example. I’ve heard many in the film community marvel at the limited budget and the impressive box office return but when I went to see it in the cinema, I only heard the audience chat about the humour, charm and emotion as they left the theatre.

These films are stand alone works of art and storytelling and I think we in the filmmaking community, in these times more than ever, need to spend our time focussing on our creative vision and making daring, innovative films that surprise and delight audiences.

And when remarkable films come along, let us in the community support them and celebrate them. We should tell our friends and drag them along. If we don’t support these films, then who will? If we don’t support them, then we can’t expect others to support ours!

As the summer approaches, Europe’s greatest film festival looms on the horizon and some wonderful Irish filmmakers will be bringing their films there and we wish them well. In this issue, we have Cannes and Irish filmmaking at the front of our minds.

We talk to Ireland’s Cultural ambassador, Gabriel Byrne, about his visions for Irish film and the upcoming season at MOMA in New York. We have an interview with the legendary French filmmaker Agnes Varda who recently attended the Cork French Film Festival and we look at ways in which Irish and French filmmaking talent have intersected on film projects.

We focus, too, on some emerging creative talent, some of whom will be at Cannes, and some of the many wonderful locations that we have at our fingertips in Ireland.

I hope you enjoy the issue and, as always, keep in touch. If you have something to say, let us know, we have a Sounding Off section after all!