Behind the Scenes Archives

Behind the Scenes

Susan Bergin Marlowe Mullingar Film Studio RTÉ Self-Employment

NANCY HARRIS’S WINNER

January 14, 2021
JUST BEFORE Christmas, the hard-working elves at Michael O’Keeffe’s Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) signed off on the latest round of ‘Sound & Vision’... Read more »

NIAMH SMYTH’S CAST

December 16, 2020
LAST WEEK Niamh Smyth’s Oireachtas media committee spent a couple of hours discussing the impact of Covid-19 on the film and TV production industry... Read more »

ANN CLARKE’S TEST RESULTS

December 16, 2020
CONGRATULATIONS TO Anne Clarke, whose Landmark Productions outfit is co-producing the first theatrical ‘test’ live performances at the Abbey Theatre. Culture minister Catherine Martin... Read more »

GLORIOUS HANDOUTS

December 3, 2020
THE FILM and TV funding agency Screen Ireland (SI), still rolling with three board vacancies since the start of the year, has announced its... Read more »

EOIN MURPHY’S NEW HAT

December 3, 2020
NEXT WEEK, Sunday World showbiz hack Eoin Murphy will join education minister Norma Foley’s team of advisors. Film director Lenny Abrahamson may be glad... Read more »

Sinéad O’Connor is preparing to publish her memoir next year and is “looking forward to dishing the sexual dirt on everyone I’ve ever slept with”. JK Rowling (below) has been the target of cancel culture after she was labelled a transphobe.

ANNUAL 2020 – ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT: 2020: CANCEL CULTURE, COVID AND CONTROVERSY

November 19, 2020
THIS WAS a year not much like any other given that the arts were savaged by the pandemic. Nevertheless, it was business as usual... Read more »

WILD MOUNTAIN JAM

November 19, 2020
THE NATIONAL public broadcaster as well as the rest of the media (social and otherwise) got their knickers in a twist over Emily Blunt... Read more »

LEO’S NEXT CHAIR

November 19, 2020
ONE OF the next appointments to be made by Leo Varadkar in his role as enterprise minister is the chair of the Design and... Read more »

PAT MOLLOY’S SUCCESSOR

November 5, 2020
STILL NO sign of the 2018 accounts at Dublin’s Hugh Lane, where there is finally to be a change at the top, with ex-banker... Read more »

FUNDING LILY-ROSE DEPP

November 5, 2020
THERE’S LITTLE doubt Irish film and television producers are having a bad year, but at least they (and their international cast members) continue to... Read more »

JOHN GORMLEY’S NEXT ROLE?

October 22, 2020
AT LONG last, culture minister Catherine Martin has advertised the board vacancies left unfilled since March at Desiree Finnegan’s Screen Ireland (SI). Indeed, Martin... Read more »

RAAP RAPPED

October 22, 2020
THERE WAS an interesting little ruling published last week linked to the bitter dispute between Recorded Artists Actors Performers (RAAP) and Phonographic Performance (Ireland),... Read more »

NUALA O’CONNOR’S NEW GIG

October 8, 2020
THE APPOINTMENT of Nuala O’Connor to the government’s Future of Media Commission may draw some attention to one of the more successful production partnerships... Read more »

ROSE MCHUGH’S GOOD NEWS

October 8, 2020
ROSE MCHUGH, Crawford Art Gallery chair, was smiling last month when the government finally put some real money on the table for the long-overdue... Read more »

SI’S SMALL CAST

September 24, 2020
WITH SCREEN Ireland splashing more ‘development’ cash on another tranche of Covid-dependent producers, following its earlier ‘strategic slate development’ effort, it turns out that... Read more »

VIRTUAL AWARDS

September 24, 2020
BACK IN July, Áine Moriarty’s Irish Film & Television Academy announced the nominees for this year’s (and last year’s) IFTA film and drama awards.... Read more »

LOUISE O’NEILL’S OUTSIDER

September 10, 2020
SPARE A thought for Ian Bailey, who is well used to finding himself in the media spotlight. Now, on top of never-ending legal battles,... Read more »

AUDIT’S PREDICTABLE PLOT

September 10, 2020
THE OVERDUE ‘audit’ of the independent film and TV drama production sector by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) was released last month, but it... Read more »

VALUING LOUIS LE BROCQUY

August 27, 2020
NEXT MONTH’S auction by Sotheby’s of 19 works owned by Mick Smurfit should shine some light on the current perceived worth of a painting... Read more »

ALAN DUGGAN’S LOBBYING

August 27, 2020
IT WAS only a matter of months after James Hickey retired from the chief executive role at Screen Ireland that he landed some new... Read more »

MOOLAH FOR SI BOARD MEMBERS

August 13, 2020
THE RELEASE date for Screen Ireland’s annual report is always unheralded and slow to arrive. While Goldhawk is regularly told to wait for the... Read more »

THE GREAT BOOK’S BENEFICIARIES

August 13, 2020
WITH RTÉ preparing to broadcast a documentary next week on The Great Book of Ireland (GBI), maybe some light will be thrown on the... Read more »

IFTA’S VIRTUAL PLOT

July 30, 2020
FOLLOWING THE announcement of Áine Moriarty’s IFTA nominees for 2020 and, er, 2019 (sort of), there was the inevitable clamour about the omission of... Read more »

TAXING TIMES IN CARLOW

July 30, 2020
FANS of Goldhawk will not be surprised to hear that Carlow County Council has had to bail out the VISUAL arts centre in Carlow.... Read more »

DÉSIRÉE FINNEGAN’S NEW FUND

July 16, 2020
LOOKING AT the lists of recent handouts from Annie Doona’s Screen Ireland (SI), it is unclear if need has been taken into consideration when... Read more »

THE PEOPLE’S THEATRE

July 16, 2020
WITH THEATRES particularly badly affected by Covid-19 and suggestions that people are in no hurry to return to the enclosed venues, Goldhawk wonders what... Read more »

ROSE McHUGH’S GOOD NEWS

July 2, 2020
ON HER way out the door of the Department of Culture, Josepha Madigan dished out €102,000 to the Crawford Art Gallery in Cork. It... Read more »

SARAH DILLON’S WRAPPED HANDOUTS

July 2, 2020
FANS OF GOLDHAWK will be familiar with the workings of the Western Region Audiovisual Producer’s (Wrap) Fund, headed up by Sarah Dillon. It is... Read more »

BONO’S FILM STUDIO ROLE?

June 18, 2020
THE NEWS that James Morris and Alan Moloney’s proposed 48-acre film studio and ‘media park’ in west Dublin is to involve the son of... Read more »

RHA GALLERY’S ROADMAP

June 18, 2020
THE GOOD news is that the RHA Gallery re-opens in late July, although a max of 40 visitors an hour will be permitted, with... Read more »

JIGS AND REELS AND LEGAL FEES

June 4, 2020
A THIRD set of High Court proceedings has just been initiated in connection with a row between some high-profile Irish traditional music and dance... Read more »

SPINNING AT LISSADELL

June 4, 2020
WITH THE music festival season shot to bits, the only light at the end of the tunnel is the announcement by the owners of... Read more »

SKELETON CREW AT SCREEN IRELAND

June 4, 2020
THE BOARD of Screen Ireland (SI) is looking pretty depleted these days, with the terms of three board members having ended in March –... Read more »

MIRIAM ALLEN’S EDIT

May 21, 2020
IN THE wake of similar announcements from Galway 2020 and the Galway Arts Festival, Galway Film Fleadh (GFF) chief executive Miriam Allen announced earlier... Read more »

UPDATING THE HERITAGE COUNCIL

May 21, 2020
AS THE coalition negotiations drag on, more state boards are running out of time. One of these is the Heritage Council, where historian and... Read more »

EOIN COLFER’S COFFEE

May 7, 2020
BESTSELLING children’s fantasy fiction writer Eoin Colfer got a pat on the back recently from the Irish Mail on Sunday, which headlined a gushing... Read more »