Today, Irish Minister for Finance Michael McGrath (TD) announced an increase in the eligible expenditure cap of the Irish tax incentive, also known as Section 481, to €125 million, subject to state aid approval. Screen Ireland, the Emerald Isle’s film agency, welcomed the news.

The body has also announced plans to back “new initiatives to facilitate production across the breadth of the country”. These include the launch of a new Creative Clusters Programme for 2024, targeting emerging talent and communities across the country, with a pilot scheme proposed for County Cork. “Following consultation with stakeholders as part of the Counterculture Audiovisual Policy report, a further engagement process will define the broader remits of this scheme, with company development and leadership supports available to build creative screen ecosystems,” the official communiqué further explains. 

Susan Bergin, chair of the board of Screen Ireland, said the move “will allow Ireland to attract a wider range of high-quality, larger-scale productions” while creating “opportunities in the growing area of VFX and post-production” and “maintaining our well-regarded global reputation”.

“This, in turn, will allow Ireland to build a depth of production crew, creating jobs and skills-development opportunities throughout the creative screen industry, as well as driving increased cultural and economic opportunities for screen tourism,” she said.

Désirée Finnegan, Screen Ireland’s chief executive, added: “Sustained government support for the Irish creative screen industry has helped enable the sector to thrive in recent years and achieve outstanding levels of global success. […] The national development of the industry, beyond the existing production hubs, is a key priority for Screen Ireland to ensure the sustainability of the industry into the future.”

2023 has been a ground-breaking year for the Irish film industry, with an unprecedented number of Irish Academy Award nominations thanks to the success of Martin McDonagh’s black tragicomedy The Banshees of Inisherin [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
scheda film] and Colm Bairéad’s Irish-language coming-of-age tale The Quiet Girl [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Colm Bairéad
scheda film]. More recently, Yorgos Lanthimos’s latest effort, Poor Things [+leggi anche:
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trailer
intervista: Suzy Bemba
Q&A: Yorgos Lanthimos
scheda film], snagged the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival (see the news). The picture was co-produced by Irish studio Element Pictures together with US-based Searchlight Pictures and the UK’s Film4.