At the second annual Storyhouse Dublin screenwriting festival last week, a group of screenwriters spoke about how they had found their footing through the medium of the Irish language. A telling insight was that at the same event last year this panel didn’t even exist, and now there is such activity and demand for the language that a discussion was very much needed. Aislinn Clarke (Frewaka), Richie Conroy (Cra), Tom Sullivan (Arracht) and John Farrelly (An Taibhse) all spoke about how even though they didn’t grow up speaking the language fluently they all make a living out of writing in the language, a massive difference to a few years ago when Irish language films were few and far between. Read on to find out what the story is with Irish language films.
Distribution for Irish-language sales
The idea of selling the Irish language abroad is genuinely a new practice, less than 5 years old and they are still figuring it out. For a long time, Irish language content was being made for an indigenous pool of people only, never going abroad. The panel spoke about how it must be viewed as another foreign language, and many people react with great warmth and interest. A good example is An t-Eilean (The Island) set in the Outer Hebrides and was picked up by BBC Alba. In terms of sales, it’s a difficult time at the moment no doubt, but it’s not the language that seems to be a barrier, it’s down to the quality. Rich Peppiat the director of Kneecapshowed that ‘the only way to make something cool is to make something good.’
Write Fright – Increase in Irish language horror films
Fréwaka is the newest Irish language horror film. Because the horror genre gets into a lot of festivals internationally, it is exposed to more sales agents, but every sales agent wanted to dub it into English so always ask for deliverables when selling. The thing about horror is that the audience are hungry so will happily watch in other languages so Irish is ripe for this genre.
Appetite for the language
In terms of the appetite for the language there are 20,000 Gaeltacht area speakers who speak the language daily, and 90k outside of Gaeltacht areas. The panel said you have to be aware of the environment, ie. You can’t just replace Connemara (Galway) with Gaoth Dobhair (Donegal) – they are different places with different industries and dialects.
What does an Irish language script look like?
In terms of cast and crew, there is no dfference in cast and crew, it’s just not practical to have an all-Irish language crew and neither would you want that. The shooting scripts are generally, bi-lingual with the directions in English, the dialogue in Irish and then the English translation side by side.
Why the increase in Irish language content?
The Cine4 scheme is a massive impetus for filmmakers as it grants funding to Irish language projects every year. Irish language films made more impact in the past 5 years of less than 2m budget, then at any time before that. If you make it in Irish it gives it an identity and people are gravitating to that more. Most indigenous languages are dying and Gaeilge is on the up and is an area to watch.
FILM FOR THOUGHT 