The Other Ireland Unreels

DERRY, Northern Ireland —  The 70-mile drive here from Belfast passes through spectacular scenery--imposing hills, sunlit valleys, dramatic views and, on a fine fall morning, foliage in a glorious array of russets, reds and browns. It’s far removed from the preconceptions about this beleaguered British province that most outsiders hold.

“Producers come here expecting the place to be rubble, basically,” says Andrew Reid, locations officer for the Northern Ireland Film Commission. “Instead they end up having a great time. And I can show them mountains, beaches and great scenery. They can’t quite believe it.”

One understands why. For 25 years, until very recently, Northern Ireland’s name has carried connotations of civil war, terrorism and appalling violence. It hasn’t been the kind of place to consider making feature films.

Vestiges of Northern Ireland’s troubled past are still visible; for instance, police stations in the small villages on this otherwise idyllic 70-mile drive are fortified, barricaded and draped with barbed wire. And recently a spate of terrorist murders in the province has acted as a reminder of the region’s deep political divisions.

Yet Northern Ireland today is largely peaceful, and the last three years have seen confidence and optimism infusing the place. New businesses have started to establish themselves here--and remarkably, a whole batch of feature films have been shooting here over the past year for the first time in the province’s history.

“It’s been a good year, but it won’t stop there,” says Richard Taylor, chief executive of the Film Commission, which was established in April 1997. “I think there’ll be extraordinary film work coming out of Northern Ireland in the next few years. I know. I’ve read the scripts.”

Not so long ago, Taylor would not even allow himself to voice such optimistic thoughts. But much has happened in Northern Ireland in recent years to reinforce his views.

The six counties of Northern Ireland remain British, though the rest of Ireland freed itself from British rule and has governed itself since 1921. In the last 75 years, Northern Ireland’s two communities have lived in varying degrees of disharmony; the Protestant Unionists (or Loyalists), who wish to retain their ties with Britain, and the Catholic nationalists (or Republicans), who wish to see all Ireland united as an independent state.

From 1969, this disharmony spilled over into open civil war, and acts of terrorism by extremists from both factions marred the lives of all Northern Ireland’s inhabitants. British troops were drafted to the province in an often futile attempt to keep peace. This conflict, and the deaths and destruction that attended it, became known as “the Troubles.”

In 1994, both sides agreed to a cease-fire, which raised optimism in Northern Ireland. According to Taylor, Belfast, the province’s capital, was “a wonderful place to be in 1995. Never mind that the troops were gone from the streets. People were happy to be here.” The peace process had a setback when the Irish Republican Army bombed London’s Canary Wharf development in early 1996. But otherwise, the cease-fire has held.

And that has been crucial for getting feature films off the ground here. “Attracting people would never have been possible without the cease-fire,” says Dennis Bradley, an ex-Catholic priest and local producer for a $3-million film, “Sunset Heights,” shot partly in Derry and partly in the Republic of Ireland, 20 miles from the border. “The cease-fire provided a window for some [producers] to come here.”

And so they came. The London-based production company Scala, headed by Nik Powell and Stephen Woolley (who made “The Crying Game”) were in Belfast in September to shoot “Divorcing Jack,” a $5-million comic thriller by Northern Ireland novelist Colin Bateman, starring David Thewlis (“Naked,” “The Island of Dr. Moreau”).

About the same time and on a similar budget, Company Pictures, another London-based production team, shot “Titanic Town,” with Julie Walters (“Educating Rita”) as a feisty Belfast woman crusading to stop hostilities in Northern Ireland. Its director is Roger Michell (“Persuasion”).

In May, a low-budget movie called “Cycle of Violence” was shot in the Northern Ireland countryside outside Belfast. And “St. Ives,” with a script based on an unfinished Robert Louis Stevenson novel, was partly shot in the province.

This represents a glut, especially when one considers that any book about filmmaking in Northern Ireland would be a slim volume indeed. Kevin Jackson, manager of BBC television’s drama department in Belfast, recalls only two feature films ever made in the province--”December Bride” from the late ‘80s, shot in rural County Down, and “Hushabye Baby” from 1991, featuring singer Sinead O’Connor and shot in Derry.

Otherwise, it has been an ironic fact that even when films are notionally about Northern Ireland they have been shot elsewhere. The city of Belfast in particular has often been misrepresented. Thus in Jim Sheridan’s “In the Name of the Father,” Liverpool, England, doubled for Belfast--while two recent Troubles-related films, “Some Mother’s Son” and “Nothing Personal,” were shot in and around Dublin. Even the 1947 classic “Odd Man Out,” starring James Mason as an Irish rebel leader on the run from police, is not authentic Belfast; it was made in an English studio, where the city’s Victorian landmark Crown Bar was re-created tile by tile.

It is obviously a good thing for Northern Ireland to be represented as itself on screen. But as Daniel Figuero, an English-based producer who arranged completion financing for “Sunset Heights” explained, mere goodwill will not continue to bring feature films to the province.

“There’s a perception about Northern Ireland,” he said. “People wonder, is it too violent? Is it a war zone? Is it possible to make a film here without being blown up and killed, basically?

“The completion bond company was worried because there’s a certain stigma attached to Northern Ireland, and not many films had been made here because of the past violence. But as the film has gone on, they have calmed down.

“For me, having experienced it, it’s very sedate. There’s nothing to worry about at all.”

Clearly the cease-fire has helped overcome that perception. Yet another major factor behind feature film production in the province is U.K. lottery money. London production companies who wish to film in Northern Ireland can now apply to the English Arts Council for lottery cash to part-finance a film--and because Northern Ireland has its own arts council, can receive a further injection of money from the province.

In addition, Northern Ireland’s film commission can loan film producers up to half their development funds if they film in the province. The maximum loan is 15,000 pounds (currently $25,000), but for modestly budgeted features, this is an incentive.

Richard Taylor concedes that the cease-fire and the arrival of lottery cash have helped boost film production here--but he also insists there is another dimension to the recent boom.

“In any culture, if there’s a period of civil war and then it ends, you get this outpouring of cultural creativity,” he said. “It’s been suppressed for 25 years, but it’s more complex even than straightforward suppression. What’s happened here is that many people of my generation just left during the Troubles. And you have to remember that Northern Ireland isn’t on the way to anywhere. You only come here deliberately. You don’t pass through. For a long time, people haven’t come here.”

Yet another factor in this complex web is that in recent years there has been a boom in feature films in the Republic of Ireland. There, the industry--boosted by substantial tax breaks--has thrived. Locally produced films like “My Left Foot,” “In the Name of the Father” and “The Boxer,” as well as the upcoming “The Butcher Boy,” have made Ireland a substantial center of modestly budgeted films.

And the skills base in Dublin is such that American-backed movies like Mel Gibson’s “Braveheart,” Neil Jordan’s “Michael Collins” and Steven Spielberg’s imminent “Saving Private Ryan” can be partially or wholly shot in Ireland.

“I think Northern Ireland’s been jealously watching what’s been happening in southern Ireland, and the roll call of their films in the last seven years or so,” said Dennis Bradley. “I don’t think we’ve been jealous of the big ones like ‘Braveheart’ or ‘Michael Collins.’ But aside from them, we’ve had low-budget films set in the north but shot in the south.

“So that jealousy up here put pressure on our government departments under pressure to make something happen. And the Northern Ireland Film Commission persuaded those government departments to put enough money into the film industry that you’d call it a push.”

Bradley is particularly proud that “Sunset Heights,” which he and writer-director Colm Villa have been developing for two years, is completely financed from the island of Ireland. “There’s no British or American money in it,” he noted. “That’s never happened before.”

And Daniel Figuero predicts: “Over the next few years, I think there will be a lot of cross-border raising of finances and the sharing of facilities.”

That presupposes that the current boom in Northern Ireland can be sustained. Not even the ebullient Taylor believes 1998 will be as busy as last year, but he expects “Mad About Mambo,” a teen comedy about Latin-American dancing in West Belfast by local writer-director John Forte, to start shooting in the summer. Realistically, Taylor hopes three features will be shot in the province this year.

“This is a peculiar place which generates peculiar stories,” he said. “We’re anxious to see non-Troubles material coming through in terms of healing the place as well as Troubles-related scripts.”

Intriguingly Villa’s “Sunset Heights” falls into both camps. It’s a futuristic, supernatural thriller about an Irish community terrorized by gun-wielding gangs, and shattered by a series of horrific child murders.

“What fascinated me about the script was that Colm never mentioned the Troubles directly, but he also hadn’t written them out of his system,” said Dennis Bradley. “So what we have is a western, set in Northern Ireland, with a touch of ‘Mad Max’ and a dash of ‘Seven.’ The problem with Northern Ireland is that so many people write about the Troubles because it’s a part of them. But the Troubles fall into a cliched situation very easily, and [audiences] get bored with them.”

Frank Mannion, co-producer of “Divorcing Jack,” who works with Scala in London, sees no reason why Northern Ireland should not continue to prosper. “As far as we’re concerned, it’s a very good place to shoot,” he said. “We took a risk, being in Belfast. For financiers, the place has preconceived notions, but I think we were very smart about the way we crewed the film up. We brought in our own heads of departments, but we tried to have as many Northern Ireland people on the production as we could.

“It’s a friendly place, and there’s no sectarianism within the film industry. You don’t have to worry about Protestants and Catholics [not] getting along. There’s a talented crew base too, with gaffers, electricians, people in the costume departments.”

“Divorcing Jack” is counted by Taylor and his Film Commission colleagues as the year’s big success. Not only was it shot entirely in Belfast, thus exposing it on the big screen, but the production also spent around $2.5 million on services in the city, thus boosting its economy. “We’ve had a total spending of 2 million pounds [$3.4 million] in 1997,” said Taylor, who hopes to quadruple that figure by 2000.

But is it feasible? The consensus among people interviewed for this article is that Northern Ireland needs one of the films shot there in the past year to make a profit, thereby encouraging other producers from England, Ireland and even the U.S. to consider shooting in the province. The smart money seems to be on “Divorcing Jack.”

“Sunset Heights” director Villa, of course, hopes his film will be the one to break through. “Look at the Republic,” he said thoughtfully, sitting on the crew bus during a break in filming. “It took ‘My Left Foot,’ then ‘The Crying Game,’ then ‘In the Name of the Father’ to establish the place, then Mel Gibson came over, then Spielberg.

“That’s what has to happen here. But we need our own filmmakers to make a name for themselves, too. Northern Ireland needs its own Jim Sheridan, its own Neil Jordan. It doesn’t just need money. It needs hits.”