At 1.7m, it's a relatively small sum, even by the standards of the Irish film industry. Newgrange Pictures founder Jackie Larkin believes Kings is the first bilingual film to source all its finance in Ireland. "We were just very fortunate, because of the type of project it was, that it got backed by all the main public funders, " she said. Kings, adapted from the play Kings Of Kilburn Road, centres on a group of Irish builders working in London. Larkin said there was a risk that the backers would be put off by the fact that much of the dialogue is in Irish, which could lessen the film's potential appeal for non-Irish audiences.

Newgrange covered all the bases, sourcing funding from TG4, the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland's (BCI) Sound and Vision fund, the Northern Ireland Film Board and the Irish Film Board.

"Normally speaking, in a film like that, you'd say it's going to have to have another European country involved. Co-production is the classic route, " said Irish Film Board chief executive Simon Perry.

One such example is The Wind That Shakes The Barley, the first Irish-backed feature film to be selected to compete at the Cannes Film Festival since 1998, is a joint production between Ireland, the UK, Spain and Germany. Such complex co-production is commonplace in European film-making.

Even the modest 1.7m budget for Kings is seen as a substantial amount to raise in a single country. Perry, who worked with the British Film Council prior to assuming his role in Ireland, said even in a much larger market such as Britain raising funding is notoriously difficult. Perry singled out Hillary and Jackie, a British film about cellist Jacqueline Dupre as one example. The fact that its producer had raised the £4m budget entirely in Britain was "completely remarkable", he said. So it is with Kings.

Despite the obvious strength of the economy, there is no flood of cash pouring in to domestic film production. It is significant that Newgrange Pictures financed the film entirely through public funds, with the lion's share coming through grants from the BCI and the Irish Film Board. It's just not a good investment for private individuals.

"Investing in production is a complete mug's game. The only people doing it are people like the Irish Film Board, " Perry joked.

Very few Irish films make back their production budgets or produce any return on investment. "Very few films make money anyway, even in Hollywood, " said Perry. Tax reliefs such as Section 481, which allows investors to write off certain sums of money invested in films made in Ireland, are about the only way to entice funds from the private sector.

"I think it's relatively easy to make money through the 481 process but the investors aren't bravely choosing one project over another, " said Perry.

Insteads, banks and law firms gather together funds from clients looking for tax shelters and make the money available to film-makers. "If 481 was cancelled, all the investors would fly away.

They wouldn't stay in the film business.

They would just find another advantageous tax vehicle, " Perry said.

Jackie Larkin is in the process of raising funds for several up-coming productions, including a 4.5m project called Stella Days, to be made by respected Irish director Thaddeus O'Sullivan.

She is not banking on repeating the trick she performed withKings. "There's a limit to how much money you can raise at home, " she said, indicating that co-production, possibly with the added boost of Section 481 financing, would be the most likely route.

In the long term, however, Larkin said it would be a help if the state broadcaster was to throw in its lot with the public funding bodies, as is often the case elsewhere. Screen Producers Ireland, the industry body representing domestic film producers, has already called on RTE to take a bigger role in financing feature films. "If you look at other, small European countries such as Denmark, that's how they do it, " said Larkin.