Pointing the camera at the midlands

Last Thursday, Ireland's next generation of filmmakers descended upon Belvedere House for a day to develop ideas and take inspiration from other directors.While there were no local winners at this year's Co-Motion Film Festival, which is dedicated to developing and championing the work of young filmmakers, the one-day event succeeded in helping young directors from right across Ireland to hone their craft and develop links with others who share the same passion for film.Organisers were Fiona MacGinty, Festival Director, and Chairperson Manchán Magan. Both were thrilled with the amount of entries this year and, indeed, the quality they represent."The standard has really gone up - as well as the originality," said Fiona."We now have more and more young film makers: before it was just groups of people who were making films collectively."Now the young film makers are really coming into their own, and here in Westmeath as well. We are delighted with the films this year. We had three local entries, so we hope those film makers continue on and make some more films next year," she said.Manchán Mangan said the idea behind Co-Motion, now in its third year, was to put the midlands on the map as a centre of creativity in the art of film making:"Here in the midlands we were always known for sports but not so much for the arts, so Fiona and myself wanted to find a really accessible art and film is that," he said. "Every young person loves the movies. They like tv and they can get a camera handy enough and this way they can start making their own movies and telling us about their own world."We set up this festival to be the pride of the midlands."What's great is that there are two different types of films coming through: group films organised by a facilitator or through school transition year - and there were a lot of those the first year - and only one or two young little weird geniuses in their bedrooms creating something. But now there are more and more of those," he continued."Even the youth films which are being made as part of groups are showing way more individuality. It's more obvious that the kids are dictating what's being said, so everyone seems to be becoming more accustomed to making movies, and that's because every computer now has software on it so it's accessible to everyone. And all of those are encouraging signs."We're convinced that some of the movies we're seeing now, the directors that we're giving awards to, are going to end up winning international awards in Berlin and LA in the future, and that's what's exciting," he finished.