Venue Theatre Presents a film ‘The Pipe’
The last 6 months have been like a rollercoaster for The Pipe ever since it premiered at the Galway Film Fleadh back in July. Indeed, after 3 years of shooting and a year in the edit, I had no idea what the reaction would be from people, especially the locals, given that they had no idea what was in the film. That night of Thursday the 8th of July in Galway was a really nervewracking experience as people began to arrive, a large section of them from Rossport and the surrounding villages close to the Corrib project. Having filmed these people during their daily lives, at the protests and during some very difficult and painful times over the past 3 years, I had no idea how the community would react to seeing their souls bared on the big screen.
The reaction was really incredible, especially from people whose lives had been so intensely affected by the Corrib project, and all the emotions of the past 10 years seemed to flood back in those 83 minutes in the Town Hall Theatre; the joy, the humour, the pain of the jailings and the heartache of seeing their own community ripped apart by infighting. And although parts of the film were difficult for many of the people to watch, they seemed to really appreciate seeing their story told for the first time without being manipulated or spun.
Winning Best Doc at the Galway Film Fleadh then acted as a springboard internationally. Although Galway is a relatively small festival, it has a great profile abroad and success here was crucial in getting recognition by the Toronto Film Festival, one of the two big North American festivals. Selection for Toronto was a massive achievement but it did bring its own worries, as we were now competing against the best documentaries in the world. However, instead of getting lost among the 300 or so films there, we managed to carve out a really good profile for ourselves. We got fantastic coverage in the Toronto papers and amazingly got 7 minutes on Canada’s prime time news features show on CBC. The reason for so much attention before the screening was timing; it was directly in the wake of the devastating Gulf Oil spill and peoples’ minds were very focused on the oil industry and its relationship with the environment and small communities. Also, in Canada there is a very divisive national debate going on regarding the extraction of massive amounts of oil from Canadian tar sands, despite huge environmental impacts.
Thursday 20th January 2011 at 8.00pm.
Admission: €9 payable at door
