The Galway Film Fleadh will screen 94 feature films from 45 countries, 110 short films, with 20 World Premieres, 7 International/European Premieres and 52 Irish Premieres, running alongside panels, events and masterclasses. The fleadh will also be a hive of activity, hosting hundreds of meetings and bringing industry decision makers together with film producers. Find the full programme and get your tickets now: galwayfilmfleadh.com

As part of the festival events, CFA@IADT will host an event entitled ‘Women and Craft in Irish Film’ which features a panel of women film practitioners from the craft areas of Irish cinema – costume design, cinematography, editing and post-production – to tell their stories and share their experiences on Saturday 13th July at The Galmont Hotel from 2pm to 3.30pm.

Panelists include Tríona Lillis (Costume Designer), Aisling Wallace Byrne (Costume Designer), Eleanor Bowman (Cinematographer), Michelle Connolly (Editor), Aine Moriarty (IFTA) and will be chaired by Dr. Díóg O’Connell, Lecturer, IADT in Film & Media Studies. All are welcome to attend!

Eleanor Bowman is an award winning cinematographer who seeks out creative,  inspiring  and  emotionally  impactful  projects.  With  a  solid  background  in  both  fiction and  documentary  features,  her cinematography  also  spans  the  shorter  formats of music videos and television commercials. The short film ‘The Girl with  the Mechanical Maiden’ won her the ‘Best Cinematography’ award at the Fastnet  Film Festival  in  2014.  In  2019,  she  was  nominated  at  The  Underwire  Film  Festival for her cinematography on ‘Five Letters to The Stranger Who Will Dissect  My Brain’. Her work on the short film ‘Quicksand’, won her the Seamus McGarvey  Award  for  Best  Cinematography  at LIFF in  October. At last year’s  Galway  Film  Fleadh, she won ‘Best Cinematography in an Irish Feature Film’ for psychological  thriller  ‘Lies  We  Tell’,  which  also  earned  her  a  nomination  at  the  prestigious  Camerimage festival in November and an IFTA nomination in 2024.  

Eleanor  also  has  a  strong  body  of  work  in  documentaries, including  Wildfire  Films’ ‘OCD and Me’ for which she received an IFTA nomination in 2016. ‘Strong  at The Broken Places’, received a special mention for her cinematography at the  Fastnet  Film  Festival in  2019. She  was  the  cinematographer  on  the  IFTA  nominated  ‘The Grass  Ceiling’ in  2020,  for  which  she  won  the  ‘Best  Cinematography’  award  at  VIWFF  in  Vancouver  2021. In 2023,  Eleanor  also  received an IFTA nomination for cinematography on ‘How To Tell a Secret’.

Michelle Connolly is a video editor with 15 years of industry experience in TV, sport and short form documentary. She has been working as an animation editor for almost 6 years in the creative-led animation studio Brown Bag Films. She has edited on Emmy-nominated children’s shows like Ada Twist, Scientist, Get Rolling with Otis and Vampirina for industry-leading broadcasters and streamers such as Disney Junior, Apple TV and Netflix.

Triona Lillis is a Costume Designer & designer based in Clare. Triona has designed costumes for many theatre, TV & film productions over the past 24 years. She started working with Macnas Theatre Company in Galway in 1999 where she honed her skills. She won an Irish times theatre award in 2000 for her work on “The lost days of Ollie Deasy”. She also picked up an a Dublin Fringe festival award in 2013 for her design work on ‘Chaosmos” a large scale site specific performance. She was nominated for an IFTA on 4 occasions for her work on the Irish language period western Klondike season 1 & 2, the wonderful Carmel Winter’s film “Float like a butterfly’ & season 1 of Smother. Other work of note is the northern Irish horror ‘Boys from county hell”, John Patrick Stanley’s “Wild Mountain Thyme” & John Carney’s “Flora & son, Triona has just wrapped on Power ballad starring Paul Rudd.

Triona also co –runs the successful fashion label “The Tweed Project”

Aisling is an Irish Costume Designer and has a broad range of design experience from Film/TV, Theatre, Commercials, Music Videos, PR Events and Fashion over 25 years.  As a personnel stylist Aisling has an extensive clientele and has dressed numerous hight profile celebrities both on and off camera. Aisling holds an honours degree from Limerick College of Art and Designs and has attended London College of Fashion. 

Currently based in the west coast of Ireland, Aisling runs her own costume rental company, produces her own bespoke collections and tutors students in design and creativity.  Aisling holds an advanced diploma in personal leadership and executive coaching for artists.

Áine Moriarty is the founder and Chief Executive of the Irish Film & Television Academy (www.ifta.ie) est. in 2003 which has 1,140 Members of Irish industry professionals and runs an Educational Programme of c50 events annually including the John Ford Ireland – Film Symposium. She has Executive Produced 17 x IFTA Awards Ceremonies; is a founding member of the Film Academies Network of Europe; and lectured annually at the Digital MEDIA Business School in Spain for five years. She founded the IFTN Network (www.iftn.ie) in 1995 and previously was manager of Film Ireland Magazine for 3 years. She is a member of the Audiovisual Federation of Ireland: Member of the Film Steering Group Kerry; Board Member of the Kerry Film Festival.

Dr. Díóg O’Connell lectures in IADT in Film & Media Studies specialising in Irish Cinema, Television Drama and Scriptwriting and is Programme Chair of the BA (Hons) in New Media Studies. She is the author of New Irish Storytellers: Narrative Strategies in Film (Intellect, 2010) and co-editor of Documentary in a Changing State (Cork University Press, 2012). She has written extensively on Irish Film and Media for academic books, journals and magazines and has presented her research at academic conferences in Ireland, Europe and America. She co-wrote the Irish entry on the history of Irish female screenwriters for Women Screenwriters: an International Guide (ed.) Jill Nelmes and Jule Selbo (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). Her current research explores pedagogy, storytelling and the short film narrative.

Díóg has worked in film and television drama production, and as part of the Writers’ Team for Irish television drama productions. Currently, she is a member of the Screenwriting Research Network and an Irish representative on the international research group – European Imaginaries. She is also a contributor to Story Lab, Film EU.

As one of the IADT Academic Leads in the Creative Futures Academy, Díóg is contributing to Student Mobility, Online Learning and Content Creation.