IT has been an extremely quiet for charity film premieres so far there hasn't been a single one. The trend has been for the distributors to hold an "invite only" free screening a week or two before the film goes on general release Mission Impossible opened that way as did The Hunchback of Notre Dame though the open air screening in Temple Bar was such fun that they could easily have charged a large amount and got it.
The reason for the lack of charity film openers is, according to one experienced fund raiser, a case of charity fatigue. It takes a lot of pushing to sell 350 tickets at £50 a head and after you've provided supper and drinks, unless you really know what you're doing, you're not going to make an awful lot of money.
The incredibly silly Independence Day two and a half hours of bad acting, violence and yawn inducing special effects was screened on Tuesday night in the Savoy in Dublin and the crowd was drawn from the charity premiere circuit including Paul McGuinness, Mary Coughlan, Louise Kennedy, Tosca's Norman Hewson, Boyzone and D'Side's Melanie Morris.
The film opened in America on July 3rd and has taken in a staggering $200 million. It's only fair to say that not everyone was as nonplussed as I was there was an enthusiastic round of applause at the end and one woman was enjoying herself so much, she managed to dislocate her shoulder.