ArtsRant: Celtic Film & Television Festival

15 Apr 2004 in Festival, Film

Touching The Stars

CATRIONA PAUL gets over her brush with celebrity and considers the state of Celtic film and televison as manifest at the 25th Celtic Film and Television Festival in Dundee.

FOR THOSE OF you hoping for celebrity stories, this is as close as it gets, so listen up:

Dundee Contemporary Arts Centre

I was on the third coach back from the gala screening of Blinded to Dundee city centre. So when I entered the bar where the reception was being held, it was already jammed. My party filed in, slowed and stopped, half-in, half-out. People began to take off coats. The girl in front turned round and smiled, probably checking she wasn’t going to take me out with her bag.

Low and behold, the girl with the bag was Jodhi May, lead actress in the flick we’d just seen, standing right there. Perfect opportunity for a question. All I could think was, are you the girl out of Last of the Mohicans? The younger sister, the beautiful, gangly, uncomprehending girl who, when she finally gets how bad the situation is, throws herself off a cliff. I loved that movie. I’ve just seen her in Blinded. All I can think about is Mohicans. No other question comes to mind. So I smile back a hello and try to give her some room. Rubbish.

In the half-step I take back, I just miss someone’s toes. I turn round to apologise and there is Peter Mullan, sizing up the approach to the bar. Again, I stall, making a deal out of finding my purse. All the while, trying to shake off the picture of Mullan as Francis Black, the character he plays in the film. A nasty, cruel, wholly menacing, evil bastard that Mullan put out there through his voice. Low and gravely, words secondary to how the words were said – promises of retribution to be believed, memories of beauty taking the place of his sight – everything bitter and scary. He was just acting, I tell myself, think of a question.

Peter Mullan in The Magdalene Sisters © Miramax

Did you enjoy playing the part runs through my head but then I remember the opening scene, Mullan having it away with May against a bookcase. No love, some violence, implied rape. Hmmm, would he take my question the wrong way? Well, folks, between indecision and second-guessing, the two stars were befriended (by others) and the opportunity for an exclusive disappeared. And so ended my brush with celebrity at this year’s CFTF.

But the festival’s not really about celebrity. 2004 marked its 25th anniversary and birthday celebrations took place in Dundee. Launched in 1980 in South Uist and Benbecula by Michael Russell and Muiris MacConghail, the aims of the festival have always been to promote the languages and cultures of the Celtic countries on screen. To this end, each year the Festival makes awards in 16 categories ranging from animation to documentaries, news and drama. Despite omission in the Festival’s title, there are three radio categories and one new media award.

Entries are received from Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Brittany and Cornwall and about a quarter of all submissions are in a minority language, the remainder in English. In addition to the awards, each festival holds a series of industry events and socials to encourage future collaborations and facilitate the sharing of Celtic expertise. It all sounds pretty impressive. So how come so few people have heard about it?

There is little doubt that the CFTF keeps a low profile. In advance of the festival, The Herald and The Sunday Herald ran two pieces on the event, one in the arts section, (written, incidentally, by an award nominee), and one in the news section. The Dundee Courier also ran an article about the visiting festival. But the chances of any of this year’s winners making the headlines seem remarkably slim.

It could be that lack of publicity is hindering realisation of the aims of the Festival. At a debate reflecting on “25 Years of the CFTF”, founder Michael Russell argued that the Festival should have had a greater impact in Scotland, pointing out as an example that we still lack a Gaelic-dedicated television channel. Whilst frustration in this regard must be tempered by reflecting on the progress of minority language broadcasting in other countries, (for example the success of RTE in Ireland which broadcasts in Gaelic 24 hours a day, 7 days a week), it cannot be denied that increased publicity for the CFTF would make it more influential.

Perhaps the Festival is confused about just how public it wants to become. At the moment, it is an industry event with talks, debates and socials organised accordingly. Inviting the public would change the whole dynamic of the Festival and could threaten its integrity as an event which industry professionals attend in part for its smallness and intimacy.

A compromise has been sought – TV and film entries were screened at Dundee Contemporary Arts and open to the public. A free event was also put on for students, and student delegate passes were available at reduced cost. As Radio Scotland broadcaster and Festival Chair for Dundee, Lesley Riddoch argued, the scope of the festival and the ability to take it to the public has been limited by a failure to attract sponsorship. Yet sponsorship is hard to attract without the Festival achieving a higher profile – what we have is a classic “chicken and egg” scenario.

If lack of publicity coincides with a failure by 20 somethings to take over from the older generation, pressure for radical change may become overwhelming. Looking round the audience, it was often hard to spot anyone in their 20s, and the majority of delegates seemed 40 plus. Many of the delegates had come in large parties and knew each other from previous festivals and/or productions. Whilst this familiarity is great, newbies need to be welcomed in. As one member of the audience pointed out, independent producers seemed largely absent, screenings were poorly attended and despite the Festival’s claims, few co-productions featuring workers from across the nations have actually got off the ground.

Nevertheless, to take this grumbling and debate about the future of the CFTF and project a picture of doom for Celtic languages and culture would be misleading. Based on the quality of work submitted to the Festival, and on the positive speeches of guest speakers, it may be argued that things have never looked so rosy for the creative industries of the Celtic nations. More programmes are being made in minority languages, and increasing sums of money are spent each year trying to capture Celtic culture on screen and radio.

Pat Loughrey, Director General of BBC Nations and Regions and a key note speaker at this year’s festival, is a man who inspires confidence that “local” will be respected. He argued that globalisation, rather than threatening local identity, has instead put “distinctiveness” at a premium and reinforced “the power of a sense of place”.

He sees the truth of this in the audience ratings for shows which get it right such as Chewin’ the Fat and Still Game, more popular with Scottish audiences than any London import. He also drew the audience’s attention to statistics confirming that more people listen or watch local news than any national version. He restated the BBC’s commitment to support programme making at the local level and he announced three new projects: Scotland on Film; an online language learning resource which could be used to learn Gaelic; and a 2005 survey to record “the way we speak now”. (For more details on this, check the BBC website.)

So all in all, the Celtic Film and TV Festival has much to celebrate. The health of Celtic languages and culture is good and Celts are well-represented on the screen and the radio. Yet the Festival does need to raise its public profile, not least to secure sponsorship and safeguard its future. My rather simple suggestion would be that organisers should invest in one or two high profile premieres, where delegates were actively encouraged to wear dresses worth photographing, then it would get the press, the sponsorship and the influence. But there is an understandable reluctance to play that game. The festival quite likes itself in old sweaters. More folk than pop, the festival remains much like my celebrity experience – a near-hit.

(By the way, Jodhi May was the girl in Last of the Mohicans. I checked online when I got home. On behalf of Arts Journal readers, this squaw promises to be brave and ask a question next time.)