A stagnant period of film production in Ireland comes to an end this week with the start of shoot on Pierce Brosnan's Laws Of Attraction, followed next week by Jerry Bruckheimer's King Arthur .

Arthur, which has a budget of $85m, is the biggest production ever to come to Ireland, dwarfing the substantial $30m Laws of Attraction.

Both Bruckheimer and Brosnan produced lower budget films in Ireland last year - Veronica Guerin and Evelyn respectively.

Indeed, the other, locally developed and produced films are generally falling into the low or 'micro' budget categories, backed in major part by the Irish Film Board. A slew of these should reach the screen in the coming months - Zanzibar Films' Headrush, Fatface Films' The Halo Effect, Wide Eye Films' Cowboys And Angels, Magahy & Co./Yellow Asylum's Timbuktu, and Ireland's first zombie comedy, Three Way Productions' ultra low budget Dead Meat.

Brosnan and Bruckheimer's new projects exemplify the kind of repeat business from producers which Ireland has earned and retained despite the deterioration of competitive advantage with the Euro's advance, local inflation and the proliferation of production incentives in other countries.

That the decision to shoot in Ireland or elsewhere is now so finely balanced is demonstrated by Mira Nair's Vanity Fair which, for a period of about eight weeks in the Spring, was definitely coming to Ireland this Autumn before it reverted to a UK production base.

In other respects it's been an edgy few months as research and lobbying has been taking place behind the scenes to ensure that the government develops a production incentive to replace Section 481 which is to be terminated on December 31 2004.

The industry will have taken heart from Arts Minister John O'Donoghue's speech in Cannes when he said, "Concern has, of course, been expressed about the future of our section 481 tax relief scheme for investment in film production. The relief is scheduled to discontinue from the end of 2004, and we are looking forward to where we go from that point."

"My message to you here today is that film production is and will remain important to Ireland, that we value the benefits that international production in Ireland brings with it, and we will be looking very carefully over the coming months at the entire context. This will involve a complete review of the existing incentive structures, of where they position us strategically and competitively, and where we need to position ourselves after 2004 to ensure that we remain attractive as a filming location."

The minister underpinned this statement of intent with the announcement of an impending bilateral co-production agreement with Germany which is to come into effect later this year.

Meanwhile, both the Film Board and producers' lobby group Film Makers Ireland (FMI) are undertaking rigorous analyses of the workings of the Section 481 scheme in an attempt to address the attitude to the scheme within the Department of Finance.

Briefings being prepared for the minister for finance, Charlie McCreevy, by his civil servants are unremittingly negative and future film policy will be determined by O'Donoghue's ability to convince McCreevy and his cabinet colleagues of the legitimacy of the industry's call on state support.

Similar lobbying by the Northern Ireland Film & Television Commission (NIFTC) has resulted in an extensive package of measures that will operate over a three-year period in Northern Ireland.

The NIO Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Investment, Ian Pearson, announced the £9.9m deal for local enterprise and the encouragement of more film and television production towards the end of April.

Through Invest Northern Ireland his department will provide up to £4.4 million over three years "to strengthen and stimulate the development of the sector" and Invest NI has also set aside £5.5 million over this period for the NIFTC to establish a new film production fund. This money is in addition to DCAL's support of up to £1.9 million over the period.

This new funding regime is likely to result in a surge of cross-border production, already a fairly constant aspect of Irish production with three features in post-production at time of writing - The Honeymooners, Straight To Video and Blind Flight.

State broadcaster RTE which had backed out of feature film involvement for two years pending a decision on a license fee increase has just issued a statement of commitment to increase its drama production by 15% this year. This follows the government's eventual sanction of the licence fee increase and may incorporate the station's earlier undertaking to put Euros 4million into feature film production.

RTE's first major commitment to a feature project is to Grand Pictures' Spin The Bottle, now in post-production, a spin off from the highly successful TV series commissioned from the company in 2000.

What RTE, the Irish Film Board, FMI, the NIFTC, The Arts Council, and the Film and Actors Equity Branch of the SIPTU union all share at present is a change in key personnel each of whose positions impact on the Irish production environment.

Tracy Geraghty has taken over at FMI, Jane Boushell is the new branch secretary at the union, Richard Williams replaces Richard Taylor at the NIFTC. Rod Stoneman is to step down as CEO of the Film Board, Bob Collins is to step down as Director General of RTE, and Siobhan Bourke is to leave her role as Film Advisor to the Arts Council.

Indications, if they were needed, of a period of change which has generally been welcomed within the Irish industry.

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