New funding has been announced which is aimed specifically at makers of short films.
The Irish Film Board (IFB) has confirmed it has committed the cash to launching new projects aimed at promoting short films. The schemes will support projects with budgets of between €20,000 and €90,000, while also backing live-action and animated short films for the internet.
The announcement follows a period in which Irish short films have won accolades at a string of film festivals.
"The new short film schemes will aim to invest in new talent by providing opportunities for film-makers to develop skills in live action film-making, documentary, animation and digital technology," the film board said yesterday.
"All schemes are open to the films in the Irish language and hope to stimulate new original ideas and build on the success of Irish-language film-making to date. The short films produced under these schemes will be presented at film festivals around the world and used to promote Irish filmmaking and the Irish film industry."
The board says the Signatures scheme will be the flagship for showcasing live action film-making, encouraging strong, original storytelling with big-screen production values.
Up to six live-action, fiction films will be funded with a maximum budget of €90,000 each a year.
The funding will also cover a project entitled Reality Bites, a new short documentary scheme which will fund up to three films with a maximum budget of €20,000 each a year to encourage experimentation in non-fiction film-making.
A third project, the Virtual Cinema scheme, will fund up to 10 high-quality shorts a year for an online audience.
The two-minute films can be live action or use any kind of animation technique.
The Film Board says projects commissioned under the Signatures and Reality Bites schemes will be launched at the Cork Film Festival next year. The applications deadline is November 30th, with further details on www.irishfilmboard.ie.
The IFB has funded a series of successful films under its existing Short Shorts scheme, which will continue to operate.
Three IFB-backed short films won awards last week at the Cork Film Festival.
The New Boyby Steph Green, the story of the school life of a nine-year-old African boy, won the Audience Award for Best International Short. Awards also went to Darren Thornton's film Frankie, centring on a 15-year-old preparing for fatherhood, as well as another story looking at the life of a teenager, An Creatúrby Peter Foott.