Alan Gilsenan, the writer, director and champion of the Irish Film Institute, tells Michael Dwyer about his vision for Irish cinema
Alan Gilsenan provides ample evidence that life begins at 40. Last year he bounced back from serious illness to produce a characteristically diverse range of work as a writer and director who moves comfortably between film, television and theatre.
The year began with Sing On Forever, his perceptive documentary portrait of Tom Murphy, two of whose plays he had directed for the theatre, On The Outside, On The Inside and the world première of The Patriot Game. This was followed by the production of his new feature film, Timbuktu, under trying conditions in the Sahara, and directing his adaptation of John Banville's novel The Book Of Evidence, a one-man play, at the Gate Theatre. And towards the end of 2003 came his marriage to Catherine Nunes, artistic director of International Dance Festival Ireland, of which he is chairman. He also found time to serve on the Irish Film Board, its only film director, and as chairman of the Irish Film Institute (IFI).
He is wearing his IFI hat when we meet, although he has to pause along the way as he dons and doffs his other hats. "I see the film institute as an iceberg," he begins. "People see what's at the top - the cinemas, the bookshop and the bar - but what lies below is this enormous reservoir of activity in film education and the film archive. I'd been a member of the institute for a long time, since the 1980s. I thought I knew what the institute was and what it did, but it wasn't until I joined the board that it struck me how much it did. I was amazed at the scope of it."
When the institute set up the Irish Film Centre, in 1993, it changed its own name to the Film Institute of Ireland. "That was done for technical reasons," he explains. "So you had the institute with a long, varied history going back to the 1940s, and you had this wonderful new building, the Irish Film Centre, and it all seemed to be a wash of too much information. I felt that the work of the institute wasn't central in the public imagination, and uniting everything in the building under the name of the Irish Film Institute was about saying what we are."
The IFC became the IFI last year, and the new name and new acronym are slowly but surely beginning to stick. "One of the main reasons for naming the building the Irish Film Institute was to re-establish the institute's presence," says Gilsenan. "A great deal of what it has achieved has rarely been publicly acknowledged, especially in terms of the education unit and the film archive, both in Ireland and externally. At the moment, for example, we're bringing a major programme of Irish films to the 10 EU accession countries, and this year we're also bringing Irish films to China. There's a whole range of initiatives on a continual basis, promoting Irish cinema abroad."
For most of the 20th century film was not officially recognised as an art form in Ireland. Finally, as cinema nears the end of the first decade of its second century, Gilsenan believes we have reached the stage where we can accept film as a crucial cultural activity. "For a long time we weren't allowed to say that in case that threatened the business of film," he says. "Irish film production has caught up, and I think we need to redress the balance and bring film culture back into focus."
Primary among his ambitions for the IFI is to see that it be designated a national cultural institute, in line with the National Museum of Ireland, the National Gallery of Ireland, the National Library of Ireland, the National Archives of Ireland, the National Theatre Society of Ireland - better known as the Abbey - the Chester Beatty Library and the Irish Museum of Modern Art.
"The time is right now for film to be placed at the high table of cultural organisations," he says. "If you look at just the facts, apart from its history, the IFI employs around 70 people annually. It has a throughput of about a quarter of a million people every year, which is more than any arts organisation or centre in the country. It generates 60 per cent of its own revenue, which is remarkable for any Irish arts organisation. It already does the work of a national cultural institute - and with a very high level of professionalism in all its areas.
"We still have a sense of Ireland as a family, but we're a changing family. We're getting very sophisticated, but we're still a family. If you go into any family in the country and you take out the videotapes and home movies, there's an enormous reservoir of memory and knowledge there. I see the film archive as the reservoir of the visual and cultural memory of the country.
"We have the expertise, even though the archive is understaffed. There is extraordinary stuff there, from home movies to newsreels to feature films, shorts and documentaries. For a long time film was considered a disposable thing - pop culture that you just threw out - but now there is an awareness of how important preservation of all that material is. The quicker Ireland changes, the quicker you can lose all those visual and cultural reference points."
The IFI is exploring the expansion of its archive, possibly through acquiring a greenfield site where it could be stored, although the point of access would remain in Dublin city centre. "It's always going to grow, so we will need more and more space, which we don't have here in Eustace Street," says Gilsenan. "We are also looking at expanding the institute itself in terms of its physical space. We are looking at the possibilities of more cinemas in Dublin and possibly of cinemas outside of Dublin, working in conjunction with local elements. I very much see the institute as a national organisation, even though there is always is a tendency when you're based in Dublin for people to see it as a Dublin thing.
"Everything in Ireland evolved out of the dreams of a few passionate people, and the institute is no different. If we are to move with the times, a very professional organisation such as the film institute ought to be recognised as a national cultural institute. I don't see this as a form of aggrandisement for the IFI. It really is more about the nation acknowledging that film is an important cultural activity along with everything that has been achieved in theatre, writing and the visual arts. Irish film has long passed the point where it meant foreign people making films in or about Ireland."
Gilsenan made his film debut in 1986 when, a Trinity graduate with first-class honours in modern English and sociology, he directed a dramatically simmering, hypnotic 38-minute film based on Samuel Beckett's Eh Joe, featuring Siobhan McKenna and Tom Hickey. "That was quite a dark time for Irish film," he says. "My first short film was financed by the first film board, which was abolished soon afterwards. But even though they were dark times you had some very interesting people persisting in getting films made: Bob Quinn, Cathal Black, Pat Murphy and Joe Comerford, and Neil Jordan and Pat O'Connor. Some were making art films, some were making more commercial films, but between them you had the whole canon of film. Since then Irish film in all its vestiges has come of age, and wearing my film board hat I have become very aware of that.
"The IFI is committed to celebrating all that has happened. There isn't any cultural elitism there. Circle Of Friends [O'Connor's film of the Maeve Binchy novel\] has as important a place in the archive as Waterbag [by Comerford\] or Budawanny [by Quinn\]. The institute's role, I believe, is to be an advocate, to educate, to celebrate, to stimulate within the area of film culture, and be proud that Irish film is as much a part of what we are as Irish dancing or singing or writing. That is what the film institute stands for."
He makes the pertinent reference that the institute's founder and first patron, in the 1940s, was John Charles McQuaid, the staunchly conservative archbishop of Dublin, and that its next patron was Mary Robinson, the first woman elected president of Ireland.
With all its activities and the substantial audiences its two cinemas attract, the IFI is "bulging, bursting at the seams", Gilsenan says. "We would love to have IFI Cinemas 3 and 4, and there's no doubt that we could pack those cinemas. There are so many brilliant international or independent films coming out, more than we can cope with. The audience for them seems to be growing all the time, and it isn't what people perceive as a young people's ghetto. The audience spans all ages and social backgrounds. So we are definitely interested in opening other screens, elsewhere in Dublin and outside of Dublin."
There have been many rumours that the IFI might use the building formerly occupied by Dublin's Viking Adventure as an alternative exhibition outlet. "It is something we've looked into with Temple Bar Properties," Gilsenan says. "I don't think it's going to happen for a number of reasons. One is that having another building so close to the existing building doesn't make geographical sense, even though it is a very exciting space. If we expand in Dublin it would probably be outside the Temple Bar area. We may look down towards the docks, for example, but I also believe we can work with local initiatives where we perceive there is an audience and a need for such a cinema, such as Sligo or Athlone."
Gilsenan describes being a member of the Irish Film Board as an extraordinarily positive experience - and fascinating for him as its only film director. "The board is a very diverse group, which is appropriate, as film-making is such a diverse activity. I've been very proud of what we've achieved. As a funding body you're never going to please everybody and you're always going to come in for flak and debate. Taking myself out of it, I've been really impressed by the film board in terms of its commitment to film and Irish film-makers. It amuses me how much flak such an organisation gets on the outside, whereas when you're inside it you see how positive that group is in terms of Irish film."
The recent extension of the Section 481 tax incentive has been crucial for Irish film, he says, describing the campaign Screen Producers Ireland ran for its retention as symbolising a coming of age for Irish film.
He has just completed post-production on Timbuktu, in which a young Irishwoman, with the help of her transvestite friend, searches for her kidnapped brother, a monk, in the Sahara Desert. "It felt like we were shooting for years, but we shot it in a fairly frenzied four weeks under very tough conditions," Gilsenan says.
"We were shooting in early summer in the Sahara, and there were days when the crew were dropping like flies. We shot it in April last year, at the same time as the Iraq war. As soon as the war seemed imminent all the American and British productions pulled out of Morocco. As we were the only film still shooting in Morocco, there was enormous goodwill towards us there, and we were also able to draw on some of the country's top technicians. Half the crew was Irish and half was Moroccan.
"It's a trip, a dark road movie, an Irish road movie set in north Africa. It's a strange movie. I'm not sure it fits into any particular category, which could be a good or a bad thing, but it's definitely a trip. It was a trip to make and, hopefully, will be a trip to watch."
Having been on the production treadmill for most of the past year, Gilsenan welcomes the opportunity to step back. "I'm doing a bit of writing now. I'm not sure what I'll do next, but I'm looking at working with John Banville on a film of The Book Of Evidence." With more than one actor this time? "Definitely. In fact it's got so many amazing cameos for actors. And I have a couple of other things on the boil."
