WILDGEESE EMIGRANT BUSINESS LEADERS ON OPPORTUNITIES ABROAD/Michael Barry Founder of Toronto Irish Film Festival:WHEN MICHAEL Barry first arrived in Toronto, he made a conscious decision not to immerse himself in the expat scene, throwing himself instead into the city's vibrant melting-pot culture.
But, nearly two decades on, feeling the need to reconnect with his roots, he has plunged back into his native culture, launching the Toronto Irish Film Festival, an event entirely devoted to telling Irish stories.
Barry knew he was on to a winner from the get-go. While Toronto already had a full calendar of Irish-centric events, there was nothing focusing on film.
Raising cash during tough economic times would be a challenge, but he and his co-organisers hit upon the idea of a fundraiser featuring The Yellow Bittern, a documentary about balladeer Liam Clancy. This year, the show finally got on the road, with the Irish ambassador in attendance.
“Our mandate is to tell Irish stories. We wanted to show people that, even in hard times, Ireland has a stellar tradition of storytelling,” he says.
Fresh from the success of the festival’s first edition, the freelance media consultant is now keen to turn the “labour of love” into his day job.
With half a million people in the city and its peripheries claiming some form of Irish heritage, he feels he can afford to be ambitious about future growth.
It’s a far cry from the gritty streets of Belfast in the early nineties. Back then, Barry was a computer science graduate dreaming of a job in entertainment.
“I was 23 years old, thinking there must be more to life than watching where you’re going at night, having to be careful about which taxi you got into,” he says.
He decided to join his two older brothers across the ocean in Canada. One of the first thoughts he had upon arrival was: “Okay, so this is what peace is”.
Once in Toronto, he started chasing his goals. His first job as a technician, managing the computer system behind a series of regional television networks, wasn’t quite what he’d been dreaming of. But, as far as he was concerned, with his salary of $27,000, he had hit the big time.
Within a few years, he was out of the back room, negotiating with sports franchises, film studios and other content providers to build Astral Media’s TV schedules.
By 2000, he’d moved on to bigger things, building schedules for national networks owned by Bell, one of Canada’s largest telecommunications players.
Three years later, itching to break out of the routine aspects of scheduling, he moved into on-air promotion, developing a common brand for the company’s various channels. Nine months into his new role, he won the company an advertising award, beating the likes of CNN and Nasa.
His next challenge was altogether meatier. Hired by rival company Telus in 2004, he went on to create a video-on-demand network from scratch. Telus already had high-speed internet, phone and mobile networks, but no TV products.
Barry’s first challenge was to hire a team at a time of massive labour disputes. Then, he also had to build credibility with major content providers such as DreamWorks, Disney and HBO.
“Canada is just coffee money to these guys. They want discussions when you have at least 200,000 subscribers,” he says.
Nonetheless, within three years he’d succeeded in his mission. He’d come a long way over the previous decade and a half, moving from back-room programming to the front end of entertainment.
“It was exciting, interesting. We were generating our own world of entertainment, talking about hit movies and big stars.” But he’d had his “wide-eyed kid from Belfast” moment. His well-paid role at Telus had left him drained.
“I had a friend once who told me never to work for a teleco. There’s lots of stress and huge dysfunction on a corporate level. It’s hard to get stuff completed, a minor miracle to get things done,” he says.
In 2008, he decided it was time to move on.
In his latest incarnation as a freelance new media consultant, Barry has set up an online library of over 300 Canadian documentaries for Hot Docs, the Canadian international documentary film festival, a role that included licensing and online branding.
He is now in charge of digital strategy for the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, co-ordinating communications across Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Freelancing has left him space to work on projects closer to his heart, in particular the film festival.
He’s happy in Toronto, but is holding on to his Irish passport for now. There’s a sense that he regrets the years he lost with his parents, who still live in Belfast.
“That’s the casualty of emigration,” he says. “You don’t foresee the sense of loss when you’re 24, but it hits you in your 40s.”
Currently, he is gearing up for the second edition of the film festival. As the event evolves, he would like to start introducing Irish-language films and to branch out into more politically sensitive material.
“As you get older, you look at your roots more closely,” he says.