Celebrating Irish Film 2019

Kirsten Sheridan

Kirsten was born in Dublin, Ireland. She studied Film Production at Dun Laoghaire College of Art Design, Ireland’s national film school, graduating with distinction. Kirsten has directed five short films, which won many international film festival awards including; Clermont-Ferrand, Cork, Galway, Dresden, Aspen, and Chicago. Kirsten is the recipient of the Film Institute of Ireland/Guinness Outstanding Young Irish Talent Award and the Miramax Best Irish Screenplay Award. In 2001, Kirsten directed her first feature film, DISCO PIGS. She was selected as one of the three finalists in Europe for the Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Award with DISCO PIGS, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, winning the Jury Prize at the Castellinaria Youth Film Festival, the Gold Medal at Giffoni Film Festival, the Audience Award at the Young European Cinema Film Festival and the Grand Prize Best Film at the Ourense Film Festival. Kirsten was nominated for Best New Director at the British Independent Film Awards and the Irish Film TV Academy Awards, and she won the United International Pictures Best Director award. In 2003 she co-wrote the original screenplay for IN AMERICA, for which she received nominations for the Academy Award, Golden Globes, the Online Film Critics Society Award, the Writers Guild of America Award, and the Humanities Prize, winning the National Board of Review, The Christopher Award, and the Broadcast Critics Awards. In 2007, Kirsten completed her US feature film debut, AUGUST RUSH starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Keri Russell, Freddie Highmore, Terence Howard, and Robin Williams. Kirsten directed the experimental film DOLLHOUSE in 2011 which premiered at Berlin International Film Festival and won at Odessa, Lund, New York Irish Film Festival and L’Europe Autour. Kirsten co-founded the film-makers co-op and acting group The Factory in Dublin in 2010 and currently lives in Los Angeles. Kirsten has written for HBO, Lifetime, Sundance Channel, Amazon, Universal Cable Productions, Working Title, NBC/UNI, Harpo, and many others.

Stephen Fitzgibbon

Stephen is a Development and Production Executive working with Curious Film, he also manages their acquisitions department, most notably acquiring and distributing titles such as WINTER’S BONE starring Jennifer Lawerence, Pawel Pawlikowski Oscar winner IDA and 2017 Oscar nominated documentary FIRE AT SEA. Recent projects as Producer include US feature WARM BLOOD shot by visionary DoP Christopher Blauvelt on 16mm and currently in post production, the Hugo Weaving lead Australian feature HEARTS AND BONES which premiered last week at the Sydney Film Festival, and as Executive Producer Ben Hackworth’s CELESTE which premiered at the BFI London Film Festival. As a producer he works on multiple mediums from film to commercials and music videos, some recent commercial highlights include the acclaimed innovative SAVE UGLY campaign for The Wilderness Society starring Rosario Dawson and Cate Blanchett and the SAY NO TO RACISM campaign directed by Taika Waititi. Stephen is currently working on a number of projects in development including Zoë Bells STRANGE RELATIONS which will shoot on location in New Zealand. Xavier Hamels, SUGAR and OUT THERE a documentary project about surfer and filmmaker Dino Thompson’s odyssey across the globe in the late 60’s.

Nicky Larkin

Nicky is a filmmaker, writer and visual artist, based in Belfast. Born in Birr, Co. Offaly in 1983 he began life as a painter, studying Fine Art in Galway and Chelsea College of Art, London, working with video and sound installations towards the end of his college days. In 2007 Nicky traveled to the Chernobyl exclusion zone to make the experimental film PRIPYAT. The short screened at numerous prestigious festivals including Locarno, Bergamo, Strasbourg, London East End, and European Media Art Festival, Osnabruck. Nicky's video art, sound pieces and installations have featured in the Chicago Art Fair, Videology Brooklyn, TULCA, and EVA Limerick 2006 and 2009. He has held solo exhibitions in Dublin, Galway, Limerick, Frankfurt, Krakow, Enschede, and, The Hague, and was the youngest artist featured in Robert O'Byrne's DICTIONARY OF LIVING IRISH ARTISTS in 2010. In 2011 he proceeded into making documentaries, traveling to the Middle East to make his first feature, the unfortunately-named FORTY SHADES OF GREY, about the Israel-Palestine conflict, named before Fifty Shades of Grey saw the light of day!! His second feature documentary - THE IRON MAN followed Michael Thatcher, a terminally-ill cancer patient for the final two years of his life. In 2015 Nicky wrote and directed his first drama, TOO SHALL PASS, starring Peter Campion, Gary Lydon and Denise McCormack, which screened at the Manchester Film Festival, the New York State Film Festival, Belfast Film Festival, OFFline Film Festival, and was nominated for two awards at the Portsmouth International Film Festival. In 2019 he made the short documentary BECOMING CHERRIE, screening in Gallery 2, about his friend Matthew Cavan, aka Belfast's most loved drag queen, Cherrie Ontop. The film tells the story of Matt's struggles living with HIV in conservative Northern Irish society. Recently wrapped on the BBC NI documentary, FIND MY CURE, following Matthew as he investigates how far away his HIV cure is. FIND MY CURE will be broadcast on BBC NI on World AIDS Day, December 1st 2019. Nicky has a couple more documentaries in development and hopes to move into feature-length drama in the next 2 years.

Nora Johnson

Nora is from Dublin, Ireland. She studied Visual Communications Design at the College of Marketing and Design, Mountjoy Sq, graduating in 1988. After college she worked at Murakami Wolf Dublin (MWD) as an assistant animator on TMNT tv show till she left for Los Angeles in 1993. Since arriving in LA, Nora has worked as an animation storyboard artist, story writer, director and layout artist, for some of the biggest studios in the world: Cartoon Network, Hanna Barbara, Nickelodeon, Warner Bros, Disney, Sony Pictures Animation, Fox, Paramount Animation. Credits include: TMNT, Cow and Chicken, Dexter’s Lab, Pinky and the Brain, Animaniacs, Family Guy, Sharktale, Shrek 3, Kung Fu Panda, Home, Peabody and Sherman, Moana, Lego Batman and the soon to be released Playmobil: The Movie. She also received the 1997 Annie Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement for Storyboarding for an animated tv show. (“Orthodontic Police” Cow and Chicken)