Film is `just another' business

Working in meat processing factories might not seem a normal career path into the film industry, but that's been the background of Ms Marie-Louise Queally, executive producer of When the Sky Falls, the film of Veronica Guerin's life, which was premiered in Dublin and London last night.

Ms Queally cut her business teeth in the family firms in the Queally Group in Waterford, which owns, among other companies, the Dawn Meats factories.

She is now joint managing director, with Mr Nigel WarrenGreen, of Irish Screen, which made the $8 million (€8.4 million) film on location in Dublin. "In the family business, you have control from gate to plate. We breed our own sheep and pigs and slaughter, pack and sell them. "Then we have our financial structures, which are most important. There is a reporting system across the group.

"It would seem the film business is not run in that manner. What we wanted to put on the business was a structure like in any other business."

Mr Warren-Green has been in the film industry since 1992 and set up Irish Screen in 1994. There's a lot of cynicism in the business world about the film industry, he says.

"We've approached it from a business perspective and turned it into a business that is recognisable to the business community at large and particularly banks."

Previous film ventures have been Mrs Browne, The American and The Aristocrats, made with the BBC.

Under production this year are SW9, a £1.6 million sterling (€2.53 million) budget co-production being made in London, a £3 million sterling television series of Human Traffic for Channel 4 and an Irish Screen production of The Chieftain's Daughter, a £4.4 million sterling film to be made in Ireland.

Irish Screen has a core staff of six in Dublin and four in London, under the direction of Mr Michael Waring, the former BBC producer.