Lights, camera, dissatisfaction

Next Tuesday sees the official launch of the programme for this year's Miller Dublin Film Festival, which opens on April 20th at UGC, Parnell Street, with the Belfast-set comedy Wild About Harry, starring Brendan Gleeson. Now in its 16th year, the DFF should be well-entrenched as an established part of the capital's cultural calendar. Instead, after several years of internal turmoil, financial difficulty and philosophical uncertainty, it faces searching questions about its very existence in a Strategic Review commissioned by the festival itself and funded by the Arts Council.

The review, carried out by arts management consultant Annette Clancy, is based on an analysis of the festival's own records on the overall context of Irish film exhibition, and on interviews with past and present board members and staff, along with other interested parties (among them this writer and Irish Times film correspondent Michael Dwyer, a cofounder and former programme director of the festival). It makes for damning reading and raises fundamental questions about the future of an event which, it states, "is currently poorly placed to continue to function as an artistic event in its current manifestation."

The travails of the Dublin Film Festival have been charted in these pages over the last few years, but Clancy's review sets out the event's problems in greater detail and depth than ever before. "The changing cultural and sociological landscape in which the Film Festival was conceived has changed radically over the past five years in particular," she writes in her introduction. "While the film sector has grown up in that period . . . the Film Festival has stayed somewhat static. Many organisations survive very well in specific, carved out niches. The Film Festival, however, has not matured alongside its siblings and as a result has been left behind in terms of funding, positioning and profile."

In addition to its difficulties in operating in this changed environment, Clancy notes that the DFF has been burdened with a number of interlinked problems in recent years. "It lost its long-term venue, The Screen, in 1998 and has not since succeeded in introducing a satisfactory solution to replace it. It also lost its longstanding title sponsor (ACC Bank) in that same year which led to a situation where there was a major drop in income for two years running. The festival is carrying a substantial debt. It has since had major personnel changes at board level, it has had annual changes of administrative and programming staff and there is little evidence of a shared vision at board and/or executive level as to what the Dublin Film Festival should be or where it should be going."

The Chairman of the board of the DFF, Lewis Clohessy, emphasises that the current document is a first draft, but says that he accepts much of its content. "I find myself nodding a lot, while still doing a lot of wincing," he says. "When we got the draft, we pointed out some factual inaccuracies which Annette was quite happy to correct, and some further contextualisation. But she had done a lot of good work in a limited period of time."

While there may be some minor factual inaccuracies in this draft of the review, it is difficult to disagree with its broad thrust. "What seems apparent is that, in programming terms, the Dublin Film Festival has lost its way over the past two to three years," it says. "While each year has had positive elements there has been a very obvious drop off in planning, in coherence of programming and in audience analysis and development. What is starkly evident is that there is no overall vision dictating the direction of the festival and that it is run entirely on a year to year basis with the artistic vision of the festival apparently seen as being the same thing as that of the Programme Director in any one year."

As Clohessy points out, this tradition of programming policy being paramount goes back to the earliest days of the festival, and its strong identification with Michael Dwyer's programming, a tradition continued by what he describes as the "apostolic succession" of Martin Mahon as programming director in 1991. But the recent, rapid turnover of programmers (four over the past five years) and the fact that the current incumbent, Paul Taylor, is based in the UK for most of the year, means that such strong personal identification no longer exists.

Indeed, the decision to commission the strategic review followed what Clohessy himself describes as "the Maretta Dillon debacle" in September 1999. The departure of programme director Dillon in September 1999 after less than a year in the post, citing "irreconcilable differences" over the role of sponsorship director (and former

programmer) Aine O'Halloran marked a particular nadir in the festival's history, when, according to the review, "the future of the event was deemed to be more important than loyalty to staff . . . the board decided that if they did not honour the request of the sponsor to have a named liaison person in the organisation then funding would be withdrawn." In other words, the needs of the sponsor (Miller) dictated the staffing of the festival.

"That's putting it rather bluntly," says Clohessy, who says that the board of directors had fiscal responsibilities to discharge under the Companies Act. "Aine had found that sponsorship, and built it up over the course of a couple of years, until it was very important. [Miller] desired her there as a liaison officer. It didn't seem to be an insuperable

problem to me, but Maretta found that those irreconcilable differences made the situation unendurable. I regret that there is a perception that we were disloyal. I would take the opportunity, though, to point out that none of this had anything to do with programming."

Whatever the reason, the resignation of Dillon pointed up one of the chief flaws identified in the review, the "flat management structure", with each of the three staff (manager, programming director, sponsorship director) nominally on the same reporting level (to the chair), although, it states, "each is paid a different amount of money and this is a cause of some concern". Any restructuring of the staff structure, it is acknowledged, would require substantial extra resources.

Clohessy, who describes his relations with the Arts Council as "cordial and encouraging", sees the review as the first stage in a process which he hopes will lead to an increased financial commitment (and a break away from the current 12month funding, which militates against strategic planning).

The assertion in the review that "there are those on the board of directors who don't perceive a need for change" is disputed by Clohessy, who acknowledges, however, that he sees part of his own role as defending "the core" of the festival's identity, ensuring that "the baby is not thrown out with the bath-water". It's noteworthy, though, that one of the draft review's recommendations is that board members should serve no more than six years (Clohessy has been a board member since the festival's foundation in 1985, and has no immediate plans to step down).

It seems unlikely, however, that the Arts Council will look kindly upon any application for increased funding until some of the root-and-branch problems are addressed. It would be hard to argue with Clancy's conclusion that "it is now incumbent upon the Board of Dublin Film Festival to deal with the hard questions outlined above, to develop a strategy to address the various issues of policy, positioning, finance, etc. and to take responsibility for the implementation of such strategy, however difficult or painful that might be."

The programme for the 16th Miller Dublin Film Festival, which runs from April 20thto 29th, will be previewed in The Ticket next Wednesday. Booking opens next Thursday, April 5th at 18 Eustace Street, Dublin 2. For information: tel. 01 6772866