Irish Production Culture and Women Producers: Nicky Gogan

Canning, Laura ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6270-0657 (2018) Irish Production Culture and Women Producers: Nicky Gogan. In: Trailblazing Women On and Off Screen International Conference, June 18-20 2018, Greenwich, London. (Unpublished)

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Abstract / Summary

In light of the Irish Film Board’s 2015 acknowledgement that “there are many talented women writers, producers, directors, cinematographers, editors, actors, animators and designers out there that are not fully represented either in terms of accessing funding for film or in public recognition of their talent” (Doona, cited in Clarke, 2015), this paper examines the work of one woman director, producer and editor.

Co-founder of Dublin/New York-based production company Still Films and the Darklight Film Festival, Nicky Gogan is one of Ireland’s best-known female filmmakers and curator/programmers. Working across a range of media, Gogan has made features, shorts and animation, but is perhaps best known for documentary work such as Seaview (2006), Pyjama Girls (2010), Build Something Modern (2011) and Lost in France (2017).

This paper explores her work and production methods – foregrounding collective approaches and female centrality – as a chronicler of contemporary Irish experience, and situates her experiences as a female film professional within Ireland’s wider media production culture. To do so, it focuses primarily on her work as a producer and curator, given that the work of producers remains under-considered in relation to production culture in general, and Irish women filmmakers in particular. This is despite the fact that, as IFB statistics indicate, 55% of completed Irish productions during the period 2010-2015 had a female producer attached (Irish Film Board, 2015).

Applying a production studies approach as highlighted by Banks, Conor & Mayer (2016), and “tak[ing] the lived realities of people involved in media production as the subjects for theorizing production culture” (Mayer, Banks & Caldwell, 2009, 4) this paper seeks to interrogate the place of female practitioners in the Irish film industry through unpacking one instance of the operations of Irish production culture.

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