Irish Film Board

In the words of Raphael Saadiq & Q-Tip......GET INVOLVED!

Stop the destruction of the Irish Film Board. Its simple maths (maybe going on recent history, something accountants, bank managers and the government shouldnt be involved in.) The IFB runs a fund of 18 million to support Irish Film in many differenty way. Through this help, the Irish film industry is worth 600 million. Read the press release below and give your support, on twitter, facebook or whatever medium you like!!



Irish Film Board Press Release.

Grassroots group mobilizes support for the Irish Film Board
in anticipation of the imminent decision by An Bord Snip Nua

It was recently revealed that the recommendations in the Report of Special Group on Public Service Numbers and Expenditure Programmes (An Bord Snip Nua) included the abolition of the Irish Film Board, the winding-up of its investment funds and the transfer of its enterprise functions to Enterprise Ireland.

Members of the public quickly responded by setting up a grassroots lobby group to save the Irish Film Board. An online "causes" group via the social networking site Facebook was setup ( http://www.causes.com/SavetheIFB ). In less than a month's time the group grew to a staggering 3,664 members. Letters to local TD's and Councillors were written, and even a Twitter hashtag was created to encourage online discourse about the benefits of the Irish Film Board ( http://twitter.com/#search?q=SavetheIFB )

The group was recently given the alarming news that the Snip decisions are being made this week as the end of August is the deadline, so if any lobbying is to be done it needs to be done before then.

There is great concern surrounding the short-sighted effects of disbanding the Irish Film Board as the follow-on effect would have several points of negative impact including (but not limited to):

* Immediate loss of employment resulting in further strain on Social Welfare which will exceed the sought after savings.
* The loss of other indirect employment benefits arising out of production activities and costs throughout the country.
* The loss of growth potential of the audiovisual content industry - which represents one of the best prospects of employment for young people.
* Ireland being the only developed country in the world producing no cinematic films - and therefore losing an incredibly powerful cultural identity tool.
* The loss of tourism and trade, which is well known to be triggered by seeing Ireland in the movies.

The full Industry Notice written by The IFB can be viewed online here: http://bit.ly/lbeGB

The group would like to encourage all members of the public to please take into consideration the long-term effects of disbanding this very important cultural organization.

Please write to your local TD and spread the word. Visit this site for a full list of Constituencies, TDs & Councillors. Without contacting them this is a pointless exercise.
http://oireachtas.ie/members-hist/default.asp?housetype=0&HouseNum=29&disp=const

Cutting the €18 million spent on the Film Board will destroy a 600 million Euro industry!

For more information please contact Jessie Ward 086 386 8819 jessie@brixtoncat.com
Click here to download this press release in Word Format