It sounds a bit like BAFTA - and that's because it is. IFTA, the Irish Film and Television Academy, is an all-Ireland body which draws its members from "film and television practitioners" and "people who work in the promotion of Irish film and television culture". Its aim is to promote Irish film and television nationally and internationally. In its first year the academy has attracted 437 members and they have voted for the nominees for prizes at the first IFTA awards, to be presented live on RTE tomorrow night in a live show hosted by Marian Finucane.
For these first IFTA awards, the members cast their net wider than the calendar year which generally confines Oscars or BAFTAs. The range includes movies which had a commercial release for at least one week between August 1st, 1998, and July 31st, 1999, and the definition of a commercial release may include runs at the IFC, Kino, Orchard and QFT cinemas. As a result, Paddy Breathnach's accomplished comedy-thriller, I Went Down, is nominated for four awards even though it opened in the autumn of 1997. IFTA chief executive Fionnuala Sweeney explains this by saying it was eligible because it played for a week at Queens Film Theatre, Belfast during the specified period. But Neil Jordan's superb The Butcher Boy, which opened here five months after I Went Down, is ineligible because it was not playing anywhere in Ireland during the stated period.
Despite the large number of Irish movies which opened here during that period, only seven got nominations in the five feature film categories. This suggests either an overwhelming endorsement of the films or the academy's dim view of all the Irish other films that opened here, or both.
Dominating the nominations are A Love Divided and Dancing at Lughnasa with five apiece, and The General and I Went Down with four each. These four films make up the full shortlists for best screenplay and best craft contribution (all of which go to cinematographers), and they take four of the five places for best feature film, where they are joined by Divorcing Jack. There is no prize for best director, so one assumes that the director and producer will share the award for best film.
Brendan Gleeson in The General is up against Brendan Gleeson in I Went Down in the best actor category. Other nominees are Liam Cunningham (A Love Divided) and Aidan Quinn (This Is My Father). Both Meryl Streep and Brid Brennan are best actress nominees for Dancing At Lughnasa, along with Julie Walters for Titanic Town and Orla Brady for A Love Divided. If Streep wins and does a no-show, will we get one of those BAFTA-style satellite links to the US?
Two Irish-language films from the Oscailt series - Lipservice and Cosa Nite - are among the four nominees for best short film (for which student films are ineligible), and they are joined on the shortlist by The Breakfast and Flying Saucer Rock'n'Roll.
While the nominees are voted by the entire IFTA membership, each of the awards will be decided by separate five-member juries drawn from the IFTA membership. Having collected five film nominations for A Love Divided, the Dublinbased Parellel Films picks up two of the four nominations for best television drama with Amongst Women and Falling For a Dancer, while the other nominees here are Aristocrats and Ballykissangel IV. As in the film awards, one man takes two of the four nominations for best actor - Tony Doyle for Amongst Women and Ballykissangel, with the other two places going to another multiple nominee, Liam Cunningham, this time for Falling For a Dancer, and the only actress on this shortlist, Ger Ryan, for Amongst Women. There are no separate awards for actors and actresses in the television section.
Nominated for best documentary in English are A Year 'Til Sunday, It Must Be Done Right, Waiting For Harvey and States of Fear. Up for best documentary in Irish are 1798 agus O Shin, Muince Dreoilin, Triall Go Chiapas and Rotha Mor an tSaol. Amongst Women gets two more nominations in the best craft contribution category for its costumes and cinematography, and the other two nominees here are Aristocrats (costumes) and Falling For a Dancer (photography).
The RTE arts show, Cursai Ealaine, which is threatened with the axe, is one of the five nominees for TV news/current affairs/features, along with three other RTE shows, Would You Believe, Prime Time and O'Gorman's People - and, from BBC Northern Ireland, Hearts and Minds. Incidentally, there are no nominations for TV3 in any category.
Front-runner for best entertainment show has to be Gay Byrne for the final series of The Late Late Show. The shortlist includes Patrick Kielty Almost Live from the BBC and three back-to-back Monday night comedies from Network 2 - @last tv, A Scare at Bedtime and Don't Feed the Gondolas.
With 13 awards to present and all those clips to be shown and all those acceptance speeches to be made, RTE has perhaps underestimated the running time of the show by allocating just 70 minutes. Then again, like BAFTA and the Oscars, it's bound to run over.
The first IFTA Awards are on RTE1 and BBC 1 Northern Ireland tomorrow night at 9.20 p.m.