Putting Galway in the picture

Lifestyle –  Judy Murphy meets the people who helped Galway to achieve its UNESCO City of Film status

It’s just a year since Galway was designated a UNESCO City of Film, joining a small group which also includes Sydney, Sofia, Bradford and, most recently, Rome.

Since then, Galway Film Centre, which is responsible for nurturing film in Galway City and County, has not been resting on its laurels.

From it base at the former Redemptorist training centre in Cluain Mhuire, Mervue, it is co-ordinating a diverse series of events, from training programmes to screenings, and is drawing up plans to attract more film-makers to Galway in future while supporting the existing local industry.

“From the Docks in Galway City, where the Irish Film Board is based, all the way to TG4 at Baile na hAbhainn there are companies all along the route,” says the Manager of Galway Film Centre Declan Gibbons, who has been appointed Director of Galway UNESCO City of Film.

Some companies, such as Telegael in Spiddal, are major players while others are smaller one- and two-person outfits. But all were involved in writing Galway’s bid to become a UNESCO City of Film, part of a larger UNESCO group known as the Creative Cities Network.

Galway City and County Council were also involved in the bid – the City of Film designation was actually awarded to Galway City, explains Declan, and it’s being administered by Galway Film Centre.

A core requirement to be a member of the Creative Cities Network is that a city uses “creativity as an economic driving force”, says Declan.

This Network consists of 116 different cities worldwide who are deemed by UNESCO to excel in different creative fields – literature, crafts and folk art, gastronomy, music and media arts, and film. Ireland has two member cities – Dublin for literature and most recently Galway for film.

The UNESCO guidelines also require that cities to reach out to vulnerable people, allowing them to express themselves and to become involved creatively.

“It’s about participation, education, production and job creation – the idea that creativity should be one of the key components behind a city’s development,” says Declan.

Being a UNESCO City of film is helping Galway achieve that by increasing its profile, he explains. While the status confers no automatic advantages; “it’s about how you use it and it’s up to you to make the most of it”.

The bid to have Galway named as a UNESCO City of Film was driven by Lelia Doolan, a woman whose career in film and theatre spans many decades. She first discussed the idea with Declan a few years ago and he felt the proposal was worth pursuing. He had known Lelia since the mid 1980s when, as a student at UCG, he was employed to put up posters for Reefer and the Model, a local film which she produced.

“There was a huge amount of work involved” in Galway’s bid, “and there are a lot of strong-minded people in this business, but everyone worked together,” he says of the process.

Participants spent the best part of a year meeting, learning about UNESCO and finding out what was required to ensure Galway’s success.

“Our bid came from both the city and the county because the county is a film and TV hub.  And we also included the Irish language because it’s so crucial,” says Declan “That mix might have been one reason we got it.”

He cites Jerry Garcia of the American rock band, the Grateful Dead, who credited their success to the fact that they did something nobody else was doing.

“It wasn’t that they were better, but they were different. Galway is like that; we aren’t making epic Hollywood stuff but culturally, we have a lot.”

‘A lot’ ranges from Robert Flaherty’s 1934 film Man of Aran – one of the most influential documentaries of all time – to the work of John Ford whose parents emigrated to America from Aran and Spiddal in the late 1800s. The winner of four Oscars for directing, his most personal film was The Quiet Man.

Galway also has Ireland’s oldest film society and there’s a strong case to be made for saying that modern Irish cinema began in Connemara in the 1970s, thanks to the work of the pioneering Bob Quinn.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.