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What is Young Irish Film Makers |
Young Irish Film Makers is an innovative youth film training and production organisation based in Kilkenny City, Ireland. It offers young people aged 8 to 18 years the opportunity to make their own film productions to professional standards of excellence. It is committed to producing feature films made by young people for young people.
The success of Squirts proved to Mike and his fellow worker, Mary Hogan, that if it was possible for a group of young people to work together as a team to produce a short film, then with proper training the same young people could produce a feature film! So in September 1991 the Young Irish Film Makers was formally set up as a non-profit organisation with an intake of 50 young people for a year long training course in Film making, Drama and Script writing. Despite having almost no resources that first year, a number of short video films were made.
In 1992 John Boorman agreed to become President of the Young Irish Film Makers, a much needed boost for the new organisation. Our young people have always been grateful to John for his wonderful gesture of support given in the early days of the development of the group.
In 1993 the Ireland Funds gave us a grant to buy much needed 16mm film training equipment , and Kodak (Ireland) sponsored 16mm film stock to enable us to shoot two short films , Home and StealAway. Also in 1993 Petra (the E U Youth Initiative Fund) funded a week long summer film workshop for young Irish people in University College Cork. Six short films were made and shown in Brussels. Extra funding from Petra allowed us to upgrade our video training equipment to a Super-VHS camera and editing suite.
In 1994 we moved to our present premises in St. Joseph's Studios and began employing six people on a Fas (community employment) scheme. We also had two voluntary workers. Two short films were made that year - Dog won a certificate of merit in the Irish Student Film Initiative Festival , and Pleh was seen at the No Budget Festival in Waterford and shown on Cursai Ealsine on Irish Television (RTE). We also made a music video for the band Octopuss Underground which was shown twice on MTV Europe.
1995 saw our drama section stage a completely improvised large cast production of The Children's Crusade in the Watergate Theatre, Kilkenny and at the Lost Youth Theatre in London. Our young film makers made a short film Skullduggery for the No Budget Festival, Waterford, and a corporate video for Avonmore Creameries.The junior group made a short film called Teddy.
Each year we run week long film workshops for 30 young people during Kilkenny Arts Week. We also run video and media workshops for transition year students in local secondary schools. Since we began training courses in 1991 over 500 young people have taken part in our programmes. Eight students have gone on to third level college courses in Film, Animation and Communications , and one is starting his own Film production company in Dublin. Mary Hogan, who helped Mike to get the Young Irish Film Makers started, is now Production Co-ordinator with Little Bird Productions, Dublin. Two of our young people have worked in Feature Films - Dearvla O'Farrell in Circle Of Friends , and John Cleere (8 years of age in our first film Squirts) in War Of The Buttons, Driftwood and most recently , My Friend Joe which won the crystal bear in theBerlin Film Festival.
This year is the 100th anniversary of Irish Cinema and for the Young Irish Film Makers it is the
defining moment of our existence as we prepare our young film makers to undertake something never
attempted by a group of young Irish people before - the creation of a full length feature film made for young people by young people.
It's taken five long hard years to get to the beginning - Now we begin playing our part in
creating the next 100 Years of Irish Film Making!
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