AWARDS

Donal Haughey has produced and/or directed over thirty documentaries both for his own company, Hawkeye Films and as a freelancer. His projects have involved been both national and international stories. His latest project, “Echoes” (2023), a short doc funded by Creative Ireland. For twenty years Donal was the documentary tutor on A.T. U`s Film & Documentary course and is presently the mentor on Ardán`s (Galway) Short Docs Bursary.  

Ciara Nic Chormaic is a filmmaker based in Dublin. Her most recent feature documentary Ó Bhéal looks at the how hip-hop artists are drawing on the rich tradition of sean-nós, poetry and the Irish language as a source of inspiration. It had a world premiere at the Galway Film Fleadh in 2023. 

She is a co-director of Farran Films, an independent film company. In 2022 she directed Clouded Reveries/Aisling Trí Néallaibh, an intimate exploration of acclaimed writer Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s world and creative process. The film was funded by The Arts Council and TG4 through the Ildána Award.

In 2020 her debut feature documentary on the life and work of the iconic fashion photographer Perry Ogden, entitled Skin+Soul was the recipient of the Reel Art Award and premiered at the Dublin International Film Festival in 2020. 

Prior to becoming a director she was an award-winning producer for over fifteen years.

Michelle Ryan is a specialist behind-the-scenes filmmaker with a unique immersive approach to storytelling and an elevated style of cinematography. Her passion is capturing and telling stories that result in creative, daring & effective content. She is adept at fast-paced projects with many moving parts, from daily embedded coverage on the likes of Jurassic World, Barbie, Cocaine Bear and Cats to the more scalable and intimate work, most recently on Michael Grandage’s My Policeman and Martin McDonagh’s The Banshee of Iniserin. Michelle, a past recipient of the PromaxBDA Gold Award for her work on Showtime’s Penny Dreadful, also runs Irish production company ‘EPIK Media’ which she set up in response to the ever growing film industry in Ireland, and the demand for more and more creative content. With EPIK, she produces unique narratives and immersive content across an array of platforms from the planning stages right through to post-production and has led EPIK Media through exciting projects for organisations & valued clients such as Universal, Warner Bros, Sony, Amazon, Netflix and Apple TV.

Maríssa Aroy is an Emmy award winning filmmaker of the documentary “Sikhs in America.” and the documentary ‘The Delano Manongs: Forgotten Heroes of the United Farm Workers.”  A Fulbright scholar, she was also the recipient of the first ever Haste Yamasaki Award for Visionary Leadership from the College of William and Mary and was awarded the Asian Centenniel Filmmaker-in-Residence at the same university. She has taught film classes at Berkeley City College, Trinity College Dublin and The New School in New York. Her latest projects include a commission from the Smithsonian American History Museum and producing an independent feature film here in Ireland with Spectra Entertainment.  She lives in Wicklow Town.  

Ross Whitaker is director of the feature documentaries KATIE (2018), BETWEEN LAND AND SEA (2016), UNBREAKABLE (2014) and SAVIOURS (2007). His recent work includes the TV documentaries PETER THE GREAT (2023) for NBC, THE ROAD DOWN UNDER (2023) for RTE, RACHAEL BLACKMORE: A GRAND YEAR (2021) for ITV/RTE, BARNEY CURLEY BEAT THE BOOKIES (2021) for BBC/RTE and THE BOYS IN GREEN (2020) for RTE. His short docs include the award-winning BYE BYE NOW (2009) and HOME TURF (2011) and the documentary commercial SLEEPING FLAGS (2019), which won prestigious D&AD and Cannes Lions Awards. He is a former festival director of IFI DocFest and editor of Film Ireland magazine. He completed a BA in Political science and Business in Trinity College Dublin and a MA in Film Studies in UCD and is a former festival director of IFI DocFest and editor of Film Ireland magazine.  

Lisa Mulcahy is currently prepping a new drama series for Amazon UK which will shoot during the summer of 2024. In 2023 she completed 2 episodes of The Tourist 2, for BBC 1 and Netflix USA and was lead director on SANCTUARY, A WITCHE’S TALE for AMC+ and Sundance Now.  Her 4th feature film, LIES WE TELL was released in Ireland and Spain in October 2023 and was nominated for 13 IFTA awards in 2024. The film has played many festivals including Dinard, Palm Springs, the London Irish film festival and The Capitol Irish Film Festival in Washington DC where it won the Audience Award.  It also won the Critics award at the BIFF in Luxembourg in March 2024. Prior to that, she directed the entire series of RIDLEY ROAD, for BBC 1 and PBS as well as several episodes of YEARS AND YEARS and the entire series of THE MOONSTONE, both also for BBC 1. She was lead director on series 1 of the Channel 5 production of BLOOD which won the IFTA for Best Drama series in 2019. 

Roisín Geraghty is an independent producer and programmer based in County Mayo, in the North West of Ireland. In early 2020, she established the production company Little Rose Films. The company’s first release was the multi-award-winning short film THE PASSION, based on the Donal Ryan short story and directed by Mia Mullarkey, which premiered in the summer of 2021, and was nominated for an IFTA award for best short film, amongst many other award nominations and wins.

She is also the producer of SUNLIGHT, directed by Claire Dix, a feature film funded under the Screen Ireland POV Female Creative Talent Scheme, produced with Keeper Pictures in association with Little Rose Films. The film has screened at film festivals including Sydney Film Festival, Glasgow Film Festival and Dublin International Film Festival, and had its cinema release in the Uk & Ireland in June 2023. Current projects include the feature documentary co-production NO PLACE LIKE HOME, directed by Myrid Carten, and BEYOND THE FOLD, directed by Ross McClean.

Roisín has also worked with various film organisations in Ireland, the UK and the US, including Edinburgh International Film Festival, Belfast Film Festival, GAZE LGBT Film Festival, the Galway Film Fleadh, Guth Gafa, PLASTIK Festival of Artists' Moving Image, the Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) and Tribeca Film Festival. She currently works as the Head of Industry and Marketplace for Docs Ireland in Belfast, serves as Industry Manager and Programmer for Cork International Film Festival, as well as spearheading the IGNITE Cross-Border Documentary Talent Development Programme.

Dr Zélie Asava is a specialist in questions of race, gender, screen studies and visual culture. She is the author of The Black Irish Onscreen and Mixed Race Cinemas, and co-editor of a Special Issue of the Journal of Scandinavian Cinema on Black, indigenous and ethnic minority representations. She sits on the Boards of Screen Ireland (co-chairing the Gender, Equality and Diversity committee), the Irish Film Institute, academic journal French Screen Studies, multimedia magazine Unapologetic, as well as the Advisory Committee on the Representation of Women and Catalyst International Film Festival’s Creative Committee, works for various arts organisations including the Irish Film Classification Office, the Abbey Theatre and the digital platform Akoroko – African Cinema Now!, and is a member of the European Commission’s Capital of Culture panel of experts. Forthcoming publications include chapters in edited collections Black on White On Screen, Innovations in Black European Studies, Mixed Marriage in Modern Ireland and the Routledge Companion to Sally Rooney.

Raisah Ahmed is a Screenwriter and Director working across film and television. Currently developing feature 'Half-Moon Camp' with Producer Zorana Piggott and Film4, and adapting Mahsuda Snaith's book 'The Things We Thought We Knew' with Mahsuda co-writing and Producer Shirine Best. Other credits include directing on CBBC’s Sparks, Princess Mirror-Belle and Molly & Mack, BBC3’s The Break and writing on BBC The Social’s phone drama Control, CBBC’s Molly & Mack and the recently announced WB Discovery animated series ’Toad and Friends'. She was part of the writers room for Season 1 and 2 of Ch4 Series ‘We Are Lady Parts’. She is currently adapting Martin Sixsmith’s ‘Ayesha’s Gift’ for television with Freedom Scripted, on which she’s also an EP, as well as developing ’Nur’ a 6 part original romcom for television with Channel X Hopscotch. Raisah is on the BAFTA Scotland Committee, the Scottish Youth Film Foundation Board, and chairs the Glasgow Film Festival Industry Advisory Group. 

Barry Dignam: Head of European Projects at the National Film School, IADT.
As an educator, Barry has over twenty years’ experience in teaching, academic strategy and quality assurance.
He studied Drama at Trinity College Dublin and Film at the National Film School IADT. As a filmmaker, he has made many multi-award-winning short films including ‘Chicken’, ‘Dream Kitchen’ and ‘A Ferret Called Mickey’. He’s had been nominated for a Palme d’Or at Cannes and a Berlin Bear. ‘Monged’ a feature he co-wrote with Gary Duggan premiered in 2015.
Filmography: Monged, feature film (screenplay), Irish Film Board / Filmbase. [enough], short film (writer / director), Fantastic Films, Irish Film Board.  A Ferret Called Mickey (director), Saffron Pictures, Irish Film Board. Chicken (director / producer), Hit + Run, Irish Film Board.

Paul Walker is an award winning stage and screenwriter whose works include the award winning Stardust, Red Rock and Call the Midwife along with writing for international series such as The Professionals with Brendan Frazer, he has worked in a variety of writers’ room and was also showrunner on Red Rock, he has also worked as a consultant on a variety of series including the upcoming Liberties and works as a mentor for new writers along with being one of the founders of the Wexford Writers Academy. He also recently received a development loan from Screen Ireland for his screenplay Broken. He has two TV series in development Legacy with Tile Media and Edge of Existence with Icebox. His recent podcast series for BBC, Obscene: A Dublin Scandal won gold at the prestigious New York Festival awards and Irish True crime Podcast of the year 2023. 

Victoria Thomas trained as a lawyer before embarking on a career as a feature film producer specialising in international co-productions between Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa. Her films have screened at Oscar and BAFTA-qualifying film festivals and have broadcast on television internationally, receiving awards and nominations from a variety of organisations including BAFTA Scotland.

She is now developing work as a Writer/Director and her most recent projects include the BFI/Screen Scotland funded A Birthday Party currently screening at festivals internationally and as a factual Producer/Director on the Untitled African Queens TV series for Netflix (executive produced by Jada Pinkett-Smith).

She is a Course Director and lecturer in the entertainment value chain and law across the value chain on the MA International Film Business at London Film School, a lecturer in the Value Chain and Producing at Queen Margaret University and South Bank University and an External Examiner on the MA Producing at Aberystwyth University.

She is on jury for the BIFA’s and the Athena List and sits on the board of Film Africa and the steering committee for ARTEF (The Anti-Racism Taskforce for European Film).  She is a voting member of the European Film Academy, BAFTA Scotland and BAFTA UK.

Joe Lawlor  

Born in Dublin, Ireland Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor studied theatre in the UK in the late 80s at  Dartington College of Arts. They graduated in 1992.  

From 1992 to 1999 they devised, directed and performed a series of internationally touring theatre  shows under the company name, DESPERATE OPTIMISTS, before shifting their attention towards  moving image based work.  

Between 2000 and 2003 Christine and Joe directed a number of episodic, interactive works for the  internet, and large-scale community video projects for galleries. Between 2003 and 2010, Christine  Molloy and Joe Lawlor, produced, wrote and directed 10 short films, under the title CIVIC LIFE.  

HELEN, their debut feature film, premiered at the 2008 Edinburgh International Film Festival before  screening at over 50 film festivals worldwide including Telluride, Rotterdam and the London Film  Festival. Helen also won numerous awards.  

Their second feature film, MISTER JOHN also premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival  in June 2013 and was released in the UK and Ireland by Artificial Eye in September 2013. Mister  John was also acquired by the BBC. 

In February 2016 they completed their debut feature documentary, FURTHER BEYOND. FURTHER  BEYOND, which was released to much critical acclaim including a 5 star review in The Guardian .  In addition to its UK and Ireland theatrical release, FURTHER BEYOND was also screened online for  MUBI and is now on Amazon.  

In 2019 Molloy and Lawlor premiered their latest feature film ROSE PLAYS JULIE In Competition’  at the London Film Festival. The film received critical acclaim across many publications including  The Guardian, Sight and Sound, Film Comment and Little White Lies. Their feature BALTIMORE has just been released (see it Friday at Catalyst!) and is nominated for IFTA 2024. 

Vanessa Gildea is an award winning Producer / Director / Writer and Head of Department Film + Media and the National Film School, IADT. She has a Masters in Screenwriting (First class hons) from the NFS and a BA in Media & Communication and English. Vanessa has received five IFTA nominations including as writer / director of The White Dress, as producer in the Feature Documentary category for Dambé – The Mali Project , John Ford – Dreaming the Quiet Man, as Producer / Director of The 34th – A history of Marriage Equality in Ireland and as part of the team that made the IFTA winning 1916 The Irish Rebellion. She is a former Vice-Chair of Women in Film & TV Ireland and served on the board for three years. 

Alison Millar started her career in Beaconsfield at the National Film & Television School in the Documentary department. Since then she has directed, produced, filmed and executive produced observational documentaries and current affairs films for BBC One, Two, Four , RTE, TG4 and Channel Four television.

Having won a BAFTA and a string of prestigious awards for her films all over the world - the Prix Italia, Prix Europa, Irish Film & Television Academy Awards and Royal Television Society Awards in 2022 she made her first feature length documentary with a cinema release ‘Lyra’. The film tells the story of her close friend - journalist Lyra McKee who was killed as she observed a riot in Derry, Northern Ireland in 2019.

‘Lyra’ to date has won fifteen International awards.

Well-known and respected for her sensitivity in filming ‘difficult subjects’, critics write of her work as ‘giving a voice to those who are the most vulnerable in society’.