Momentum building ahead of Tipperary Film Festival

Event runs from September 11-13

This coming autumn, the lights in the auditorium of Nenagh Arts Centre will dim and the ambience will suddenly change. A tape will start rolling, the surround sound will boom and the inaugural edition of Tipperary Film Festival will burst into life, screening a collection of short films on a diverse range of topics and themes from an equally diverse range of creators.

The event, which runs from September 11 to 13 in the Arts Centre, is the latest creative venture to hit the town, and it certainly holds plenty of promise. Its founders – Nancy O’Donoghue, Jake Mitchell and Sean Paul Fitzpatrick – only conceived the idea for a film festival a couple of months ago. Each believes that Ireland, despite having a rich cinematic landscape and plenty of film heritage, simply doesn’t have enough outlets for aspiring film-makers and indeed ordinary people to express themselves, particularly in rural areas. Tipperary Film Festival is their answer. There are zero barriers to entry, the event is open to virtually everyone, the founders have full editorial independence and as Nancy emphasises, “you don’t have to have bags of coins to compete” – entry and attendance are both free.

Nancy, a Cork native who is now a Ballymackey resident, describes the event as “more of a competition than a festival” and says that a huge number of submissions have already been received, including many from overseas.

However, she stresses that winning isn’t really the point. There is a handsome total prize-pot of €5,000, including a grand prize worth €1,000, but she says the overriding objective of this event is “to encourage people to start creating, to encourage people to tell their story through a short film”. Why a short film? “Because that’s the world we live in,” Nancy replies. “It’s a very visual world.” The Ballymackey woman’s observations ring true. She feels that in our modern, social media-dominated world, short and impactful videos garner the most attention. That is part of the reason why she believes this festival will take off. Added to that, she says that Irish people have a unique storytelling capacity, that they are skilled raconters. It’s a trait which she says is ingrained in us naturally, and film is an obvious way of expressing it.

Nenagh’s nascent film industry

In many ways it is unsurprising that Jake and Sean Paul are also driving this project. Despite the fact that the two young men are barely 20 years of age, both have become synonymous with Nenagh’s nascent film industry. The co-founders of LAZ Digital, a visual marketing enterprise that works with local brands and businesses, Jake and Sean Paul are naturally ambitious and hugely determined.

Sean Paul says that when Nancy first proposed the idea to them back in the spring, they immediately “jumped on board”.

He acknowledges that “there are a lot of other great film festivals out there”, but believes “there can always be more” in order “to branch out and broaden the scope for film-makers and non-film-makers.” On that note, one of the aims of this year’s festival is to encourage everyday people, or so-called “non-film-makers”, to embrace the art and submit something. Practically everybody now has access to mobile phones which are capable of recording and editing high-resolution video footage. Sean Paul feels people should utilise this resource and use their phones to create something, as opposed to doomscrolling or spending hours on social media.

Asked how much potential Tipperary Film Festival has, Jake – who has won several awards for his film-making in recent years – believes that the sky is the limit. He says that they want to turn Nenagh into “a film-making hotspot for the midwest” and that this is a long-term game.

“We want to keep this going, and that’s part of the reason why we’re so appreciative of the support that people have given us so far, because it enables us to move forward and make this a successful event, this year and in future years,” he says.

Every possible genre

Nancy, Sean Paul and Jake each speak effusively of Nenagh Arts Centre, and also emphasise the broad range of entries that have been received, particularly from international participants. Jake says they’ve received “films of every possible genre imaginable” from creators in every category, which ranges from young children right up to seniors. Nancy adds that the Irish language section is doing particularly well, something which she is delighted to see. She adds that it's not too late either. The closing date for submissions isn’t until July 31.

You get the impression that this year’s event is only really a starting point for the Tipperary Film Festival.

Its potential is huge and Nancy, Sean Paul and Jake are full of ideas and plans for future years. There will almost certainly be a few distinguished guests at the three-day event in September as well. For now, however, the focus is on bringing this innovative project to fruition, and creating a splash of Hollywood in Nenagh.