I am delighted to present our new Education and Access programme for Winter 2006. This new-look programme outlines our events for the months ahead.

As well as established features, such as our ongoing national schools cinema screenings, we are extending the Transition Year Moving Image Module to Dublin and Athlone. Following the very popular pilot in Kildare, filmmaker Vinnie Murphy will this season deliver practical filmmaking workshops in participating schools in Kildare.

IFI Education and Access is committed to promoting the best of international cinema to audiences of all ages. Among this year’s highlights will be the national tour of two modern language titles - the French film Le Grand Voyage and the German film The Edukators. These two new teaching guides will be available to all teachers and join our ever expanding range of teaching resources available to download from our website.

Box-office success and critical acclaim has labelled The Wind that Shakes the Barley ‘the Irish film of the year’, and we are delighted to offer audiences both young and old the opportunity to study this film in greater detail over the coming months.

Our programme is expanding to incorporate archive film events, community initiatives such as The Wild Strawberries and adult education programmes. It is our hope that we can reach even more people with our programmes in 2007.

We welcome Alice Black as our Regional Development Officer, and we also say farewell to our much valued colleague, Ann Ryan, whom many of you will have met at schools events over the years.

Mark Mulqueen
Director, Irish Film Institute