MINISTER for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin TD has welcomed the BAI announcement of €7.2m in Sound and Vision funding.
This will facilitate the production of 104 projects based on Irish culture, heritage and experience, global affairs that affect the Irish state, media literacy and adult literacy.
In total, projects will be broadcast across 32 different channels that include community, commercial and public service broadcasters. The round also includes the funding of €1.4m the Minister provided to BAI to help the live music sector.
Speaking on the annoucement, the Minister said: “In December last year, I provided funding of €1.4m to BAI to support our live music sector, which the COVID-19 crisis has so greatly impacted.
“Musicians need to be able to perform and I am very pleased that the BAI has completed its first ever Live Music Sector funding round alongside this general round for the audiovisual sector.
“A total of eight live music projects will be funded, including ‘Foster & Allen – Lost in Music’, ‘Irish Music Month’ and ‘Séisiúin sa Black Gate’. These projects will allow us to listen to a diverse range of artists perform, both established and new, with a wide variety of styles. I am also happy to note that so many female artists will be supported.” she added.
The Minister also welcomed the promotion of women in lead creative roles, noting that of the 22 projects funded under this category, nine had at least four key roles filled by women, and a further four projects had over half of the creative roles filled by women.
The Minister noted:“Diversity and gender equality are topics that I am passionate about and, in this regard, I am pleased to see the BAI has included specific projects under their Gender Action plan ‘Women in Lead Creative Roles’ which gives consideration to the number of women in key creative roles – producer, director, writer, director of photography and editor – as a measure to support greater gender equality in the industry.
“This is a welcome development and we can see how this is bearing fruit in the large number of high quality productions with women in key creative roles, with projects such as ‘Our Unique Tales’, ‘Irish Women in Harmony’ and ‘The Glorious Heresies’.” she explained.
Speaking about the underdevelopment of creative outlets, Willzee, an artist from Limerick , said the following on state polices to provide underrepresented people a chance to perform:
“I strongly feel that that’s what the governments lacking in these areas like I wouldn’t say these areas is in like the worthless areas, because I’ll tell you this, some of the most creative outlandish people that you’ll ever meet there is the greatest characters we know are from these so called ‘areas’ you know, and the reason we’re looked at so negatively is because you get some people that procrastinate…. That’s what we’re missing in Limerick, especially outside of the city.”
This round of funding builds on the €2.58m allocated to the independent commercial radio sector in April 2021. Full details of all successful projects are available on the BAI website at www.bai.ie.
The BAI intend to hold further rounds later in the year and details of these will be announced as they are launched.
