Over the years, the Department of Film and Screen Media has welcomed many leading figures from the worlds of film, media and television. Here are just some of the guests that have delivered masterclasses and public lectures to our students.

LENNY ABRAHAMSON is an award-winning film director. Since making his debut with the short film 3 Joes (1991), he worked in television and advertising. His debut feature was Adam and Paul, which won the Best First Feature award at the 2004 Galway Film Fleadh and the Grand Prix at the 2005 Sofia International Film Festival. His second feature film, Garage, a second collaboration with writer Mark O' Halloran, was selected for Director's Fortnight at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and won the CICAE Art and Essai award. The film also won the awards for Best Film, Best Director, Best Script and Best Actor at the 2008 Irish Film and Television Awards (IFTAs). He received acclaim for his work in television (Prosperity), and made his third feature, What Richard Did in 2012. Since then he has directed Frank (2013);  the Oscar-nominated Room (2015), and The Little Stranger (2018). 

BETSY BLAIR, award-winning actress of film and stage. She was nominated for as Best Supporting Actress for Marty at the Academy Awards in 1955. Her many film appearances include, The Snake Pit (1948) and The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1982).

KEVIN BROWNLOW, award-winning filmmaker (Winstanley; It Happened Here), film historian, film preservationist, in 2010 Brownlow was awarded an Oscar for his services to the film industry 

ROB BYRNE, world-renowned film preservationist and President of the board of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. To date, Rob has led restorations of more than twenty silent era feature films from as well as numerous short subjects. In 2018 the publication of his restored Behind the Door (1919) was recognised as a 2018 Best Single DVD Release at the II Cinema Ritrovato DVD Awards. Rob has also regularly published articles in the FIAF Journal of Film Preservation and AMIA's The Moving Image, and countless film festival catalogues. 

MALCOM CAMPBELL is a screenwriter whose credits include the acclaimed feature film What Richard Did and C4's hit drama series Ackley Bridge, which he created and wrote. He has written for some of the UK's most popular dramas, including Shameless and Skins, as well as the Golden Globe-nominated mini-series The White Queen (BBC1/Starz). He created and wrote the BBC's multi-Bafta-winning educational show L8R, and gained Bafta nominations for his own single dramas, All About Me (BBC1) and Losing It (C4). His screenplay for What Richard Did, directed by Lenny Abrahamson and produced by Element Films, won numerous awards including The Evening Standard British Film Awards' Best Screenplay, the Writers Guild's Best Screenplay, and the Irish Film and TV Awards' Best Film Script. He cowrote the film Herself, with its star Clare Dunne, and directed by Phyllida Lloyd.

KATHERINE CANTY, filmmaker who has won acclaim for her short films, including Venus in Retrograde and January Hymn

JACK CARDIFF, Oscar-winning cinematographer and director. DoP on numerous Powell-Pressburger films, including Black Narcissus. Over his long career he worked with legendary directors and actors such as Michael Powell; Marilyn Monroe; Ava Gardner; John Ford; John Huston; King Vidor; Joshua Logan. 

PAT COLLINS  is an award-winning film director whose most recent film Song of Granite (2017) had its World Premiere at SXSW Film Festival. He has made over 30 films, the feature film Silence and films on John McGahern, Abbas Kiarostami and the cartographer and artist Tim Robinson, as well as experimental film works such as Pilgrim and What Remains.

JOHN CROWLEY, recipient of the UCC Distinguished Alumni Award. John is best known for directing the Oscar-nominated, Brooklyn, and for his debut, Intermission (2003). Crowley earned a BA in English and Philosophy (1990) and an MA in Philosophy (1992) in UCC. He has an extensive career in film, theatre and television. 

REBECCA DALY, an award-winning director who has made three feature films since her debut short film, Joyriders (2007). Her feature work includes The Other Side of Sleep; Mammal; Good Favour. 

CARL DAVIS, Oscar-nominated composer, famous for his collaborations with Kevin Brownlow (on Napoleon; Flesh and the Devil; The Crowd) and with Paul McCartney

IAN FOX, cameraman and cinematographer with a forty year career in Hollywood. Ian has worked with directors such as James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, Ivan Reitman

ALAN GILSENAN, IS one of Ireland’s most acclaimed filmmakers. His documentary work includes: The Road to God Knows Where (1988); The Meeting (2018); The Asylum (2007); The Hospice (2006)  The Yellow Bittern (2008), Meetings with Ivor (2017); Eliza Lynch (2013). His feature films include Unless (2017). 

MARGO HARKIN, award-winning Irish filmmaker, best known for the drama Hush-a-Bye Baby and the documentary Bloody Sunday

TOM HICKEY, one of the leading Irish actors of his generation. He has worked extensively at Ireland’s national theatre, The Abbey Theatre, from the seventies onwards, the Gate Theatre Dublin, the Gate’s Samuel Beckett Festival at the Lincoln Centre New York. His most important roles on the British stage include Jack in Conor McPherson’s The Weir in London’s West End and UK tour and, most recently, in the West End production of Samuel Beckett’s Endgame. His extensive film career has included appearances in Breakfast on Pluto (Neil Jordan), Inside I’m Dancing (Damian O’Donnell), Headrush (Shimmy Marcus), Coney Island Baby (Amy Hobby), Possession (Neil LaBute), The Last September (Deborah Warner), The Butcher Boy (Neil Jordan), All Souls Day (Alan Gilsenan), Gold in The Streets (Elizabeth Gill), An Awfully Big Adventure (Mike Newell), Circle of Friends (Pat O’Connor), Moondance (Dagmar Hirtz), Raining Stones (Ken Loach), The Miracle (Neil Jordan), My Left Foot (Jim Sheridan), High Spirits (Neil Jordan), Gothic (Ken Russell), Cal (Pat O’Connor), Flight of the Doves (Ralph Nelson), Garage (Lenny Abrahamson and What Richard Did. Television work includes: Black Day at Black Rock (RTE), The Bill (ITV), Seascape (RTE), The Treaty (RTE), Valentine Fall (Channel 4), Saracen (Central/ITV), The Manions of America (ABC), Play for Today (BBC), The Riordans (RTE).

GRÁINNE HUMPHREYS is the director of the Virgin Media Dublin International Festival She has worked in film programming for over twenty years, beginning with roles in the Junior Dublin Film Festival in 1994; in the IFI (as Education officer) from 1995, before becoming Assistant Director of the Dublin Film Festival in 2001. In that role she programmed both the “Stranger Than Fiction” Documentary Festival and the Dublin French Film Festival (2002- 2007). She became the director of the Festival in 2007. Among other projects, Gráinne has co-edited Ireland into Film, a series of publications on a number of key Irish films; served as a jury member on a number of international film festival; and coordinated a number of Irish film seasons at international events. She is a Board Member of the Centre Culture Irlandais in Paris and in 2018 was awarded the prestigious Ordre National du Mérite by the French Republic.

GERARD HURLEY, award-winning director, writer and actor. He has directed a number of films, including the critically-acclaimed The Pier (2013)

Since 2001 MARC ISAACS has made more than 14 creative documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4 in the UK. His films have won Grierson, Royal Television Society and BAFTA awards, as well as numerous international film festival prizes. His work includes Lift (2001); All White in Barking (2007); The Road: A Story of Life and Death (2012); and Outsiders (2014)

Writer-Director OONAGH KEARNEY'S introduction to film began with casting Ken Loach’s The Wind That Shakes the Barley in 2005. Since 2009, she has written and directed a variety of award-winning shorts, including Women’s Christmas Night (2016); On the Hemline (2017); The Wake; and Wonder House. Her most recent film is Five Letters to the Stranger Who Will Dissect My Brain

DAVID KEATING,  a critically acclaimed film director, an exec producer and screenwriter of feature films and also a documentary maker. As a director, his award winning films include Wake Wood (Hammer / Irish Film Board with Timothy Spall and Aidan Gillen), The Last of the High Kings (Miramax with Jared Leto, Gabriel Byrne, Christina Ricci), and Cherry Tree (MPI Dark Sky / Irish Film Board with Anna Walton, Naomi Battrick). His screenwriting credits include the Mike Newell / Jim Sheridan collaboration - Into The West (Miramax, with Gabriel Byrne, Ellen Barkin).

AOIFE KELLEHER is the director of acclaimed documentaries such as One Million Dubliners; Strange Occurrences in a Small Irish Village; We Need to Talk about Dad; and Home. She most recently made the series, Inside the Midlands Prison, which was screened on Virgin Media One in February 2019. 

Academy Award nominee SCOTT HAMILTON KENNEDY is a writer, director, producer, cameraman, and editor and has worked on everything from music videos and commercials to motion capture animation, scripted and reality television, and fiction and non-fiction film. Scott’s documentary The Garden was nominated for a 2009 Academy Award for Best Documentary feature

Casting director LOUISE KIELY has had a career in casting since 2005. She has been responsible for castings in theatre, film and television, including casting Jack Reynor in Lenny Abrahamson’s highly critically acclaimed latest feature production What Richard Did.

ESTHER McCARTHY has interviewed many of the leading names in cinema as feature writer and film critic. She has over twenty years’ experience in interviewing and writing for various national media including The Irish Examiner and Mediahuis Ireland (formerly INM). As leading industry publication Screen International's Ireland correspondent, she reports on Ireland's screen industry for international audiences. She is also a radio reviewer and contributor, most notably on the popular ‘Movies and Booze’ show with Sean Moncrieff on Newstalk.

MEGAN McGURK is the director of the Business Academic Writing Centre in University College Dublin. She hosts Sass Mouth Dames podcast and film club https://sassmouthdames.com/

Irish actor and director TERRY McMAHON. Terry has a number of acting credits, including work with Christopher Nolan in Batman Begins; his directing work includes: Charlie Casanova and Patrick’s Day.

JOSEPH MORDER is one of the most prolific filmmakers in France. He started filming in 1967 after receiving his first Super 8 camera for his eighteenth birthday. Since then, he has made over 900 films, the majority of which on amateur formats (Super 8, 8mm, video, and camera phone). Morder is also a journalist, and teaches film in Paris at both Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne University and at FEMIS (École Nationale Supérieure des Métiers de l'Image et du Son).

ROSSA MULLIN is CEO of Film in Cork, a body that helps facilitate productions in Cork. His most recent collaboration includes facilitating Young Offenders (Footte). He has a production company, Pooleen Productions, which is based in Cork. 

PAT MURPHY is Arts Council/UCC Film Artist in Residence (2018-9). Pat Murphy's early work emerged from the radical, creative upheavals which defined Hornsey and the Royal College of Art in the 1970s. Her first feature, Maeve (BFI/RTE) won the Best Irish Film Award in Cork and was screened in Venice in 1981. Her second feature Anne Devlin also represented Ireland at many festivals. Nora (2000) an award-winning, international co-production, starred Ewan McGregor and Susan Lynch. Her most recent film Tana Bana won an audience award at JDIFF Dublin International Film Festival in 2015.  Pat has curated major film and seminar programmes for the Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Irish Film Centre. 

SHAUN O’CONNOR studied Multimedia at the Cork Institute of Technology and Film Studies at University College Cork. He directed his first short in 2010 and through years of directing shorts, television and music videos has developed a distinct visual and storytelling style. Shaun’s short period film Uisce Beatha won the ‘Filmmaker’s Choice’ Award at DC Shorts and screened at the Dublin Film Festival, the Helsinki Film Festival and Raindance London. In 2015 Shaun directed (R)onanism, a short series for RTE Ireland, produced by Fantastic Films and made with the support of the Irish Film Board. His latest short film Disappear has been picked up for international distribution by Berlin agency Aug&Ohr Medien. In 2018 Shaun he directed Mary, produced with the support of the Irish Film Board’s ‘Short Stories’ initiative and starring Mark O’ Halloran. He is currently developing his first feature film The Hosts.

HUGH O'CONOR is an award-winning actor, writer, director, and photographer. He won the 1991 Youth in Film award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as the young Christy Brown in the Oscar-winning My Left Foot (1990), and was nominated at the 2001 SAG awards for Best Ensemble for his performance as Pére Henri in the Oscar-nominated Chocolat (2000). He wrote and directed several shorts with the Irish Film Board, including Corduroy (2010), which was selected for the Generation 14+ programme at the 60th Berlinale. In addition to film and theatre work, Hugh has directed music videos for artists including the late Sinéad O’Connor, and was series director for Irish National Opera’s acclaimed 20 Shots of Opera, which was nominated for the Special Jury Prize at the 2021 Irish Theatre Awards. https://www.hughoconor.com/

CHRIS O’DELL, BSC is a photographer and cinematographer. He travelled widely in the 70s and 80s filming current affairs programmes and documentaries of every kind, including Cosmos with Carl Sagan, and The Heart of the Dragon, the story of China, for Channel 4. He ran a successful production company, Screenlife Productions, making arts and music programmes for the BBC and other clients. Since 1990 he has photographed many successful TV drama series including Agatha Christie’s Poirot, Sharpe, Hornblower, Inspector Morse, the Morse sequel Lewis, and many single dramas. He is on the board of the Fastnet Schull Short Film Festival.

MARK O’HALLORAN was Arts Council/UCC Film Artist in Residence, 2017-8. He is a writer/ actor that has worked extensively in film, theatre and television. He collaborated on two films with Lenny Abrahamson: Adam and Paul; Garage; with Paddy Breathnach on Viva (2015), and most recently wrote the acclaimed television film, Citizen Lane (Thaddeus O’Sullivan). For the stage he has written the play Trade, and most recently contributed text to the award winning theatre production Lippy.

TADHG O'SULLIVAN is an artist and filmmaker working primarily in non-fiction cinema. Often working with literary sources and cinematic archive, his films seek to evoke the timelessness of human experience, and to illuminate the present moment through ideas from the distant past. His most recent feature film To the Moon had its world premiere recently at Venice Days and was selected for Telluride Film Festival 2020. Previous films Yximalloo (with Feargal Ward, 2014) and The Great Wall (2015) have screened at numerous major film festivals including FiD Marseille, MOMA Doc Fortnight, CPH:DOX, Dokufest Kosovo and been broadcast internationally.

Irish artist and film director CATHERINE OWENS is best known for her collaborative work as a director for visual content and in particular as the creative director of screen imagery for the Irish band U2 on five of their world tours. She is the co-director of the film titled U23D, which was made for 3D Imax and 3D Digital theatrical release in 2008. Owen also collaborated with dancer Colin Dunne on Colin Dunne: Sculpting Space (2012), and Kumba Mela.  

Lord DAVID PUTTNAM, Oscar-winning producer of Chariots of Fire; The Killing Fields; Midnight Express; Bugsy Malone. Adjunct Professor of Film Studies & Digital Humanities, UCC; Chair of Atticus Education.

TRINA RAE has two decades of TV production experience with some of the world’s leading broadcasters, including working on The Presidential Documentaries for CNN; successful factual formats such as The Secret Millionaire(Channel 4/RTE) and Next Door Nightmare’ (Sky1 HD), as well as chat shows including The Late Late Show (RTE). She has also worked in developing and producing new TV series, both factual and reality, including RTE’s landmark feature length documentary celebrating fifty years of Irish television, Fifty Years in the Glow. She worked inhouse in RTE for a number of years before joining the independent sector. She is an award-winning journalist (The Irish Times Christina Murphy Memorial Prize), a best-selling author (nonfiction), a radio documentary producer, and is content curator of GeniusRush.com.

DECLAN RECKS is a director-writer whose early short films won several awards and played at numerous festivals worldwide. He was nominated for an IFTA for Best Director on 4 occasions and won in 2005 for his direction of the critically acclaimed television series,  Pure Mule.  His film, Eden, was the closing film at the 2008 Jameson Dublin International Film Festival. His most recent film is The Truth Commissioner (2016)

Award-winning Irish composer, STEPHEN RENNICKS is a prolific composer of scores for film and television. He is perhaps best known for his collaborations with director Lenny Abrahamson on such works as the Oscar nominated Room; and The Little Stranger; Garage

EMER REYNOLDS has an extensive career as a film editor on such films as Ailsa (Breathnach, 1994); Korea (Black, 1995); I Went Down (Breathnach, 1997); and The Actors (McPherson, 2004), among many others. Her work as a director includes Here Was Cuba (2013) and the multi-award winning The Farthest (2017).

Co-founder and co-director of the Schull film festival, and film composer MAURICE SEEZER As well as former collaborations with singer Gavin Friday, Maurice has worked with Jim Sheridan on several films, including In America and The Boxer, composed songs that featured on Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge and Julian Schnabel's Basquiat. 

KIRSTEN SHERIDAN, an Irish film director and screenwriter. The director of August Rush (2007) and Disco Pigs (2001), Sheridan was nominated for an Academy Award for co-writing the semi-autobiographical film In America with her father, director Jim Sheridan, and her sister, Naomi Sheridan. 

GERARD STEMBRIDGE, Arts Council/UCC Film Artist in Residence (2015-6). Best known for his work as a writer and director of Scrap Saturday (RTE radio); films such as Guiltrip (1995); Black Day at Black Rock; About Adam (2000); and as a writer, Nora (2000), Ordinary Decent Criminal (2000). 

HUGH TRAVERS was Arts Council/UCC Film Artist in Residence (2016-7). He is an award-winning screenwriter whose credits include Trial of the Century (Treasure Entertainment, Loosehorse, TV3), Red Rock (Element Pictures, TV3), Choose or Lose (Shinawil, RTE) and Green is the Colour (Treasure Entertainment, RTE). His theatre credits include the critically acclaimed Lambo and Clear the Air. His short films Crossword and An Cosc have won numerous awards at domestic and international festivals. 

KEN WARDROP is one of the most accomplished documentary filmmakers of the last decade, perhaps best known for the award-winning features Making the Grade,  Mom and Me, His & Hers, as well as short films, Useless Dog and Undressing my Mother. He runs Venom media and has had an extensive career, too, in promotional /advertising productions.

CARMEL WINTERS, our inaugural Arts Council/ UCC Film Artist in Residence (2014-15). Director of  Snap, which went on to win the prestigious Variety Critics Choice Award at the Karlovy-Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic, and of Float Like a Butterfly (2018), which won the FIPRESCI Prize for the Discovery Programme at the Toronto International Film Festival.