10 Rising Irish Stars Behind the Camera

Alex Ritman
·5 min read
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10 Rising Irish Stars Behind the Camera
10 Rising Irish Stars Behind the Camera

Ireland’s film and TV scene may be booming with both local projects and big Hollywood productions, but much of this is being supported by a groundswell of rising Irish talent working behind the camera. From writers working on hit shows such as “Bad Sisters,” to costume designers on Universal’s latest monster horror to a director working on her first feature for one of Ireland’s most beloved — and successful — animation studios, Variety picks out 10 creatives to look out for.

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Aislinn Clarke, writer/director

Rising genre talent Clarke saw her debut feature “The Devil’s Doorway” — a found-footage horror that tapped into the very-real controversies around Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries — snapped up by IFC, which released the film in 2019. A lecturer in Creative Writing and Film at Queen’s University in Belfast, Clarke is currently in post-production on “Fréwake,” about a troubled palliative care nurse and billed as the first ever Irish-language horror, while she also has projects in development at Paramount and StudioCanal.

Andrew Legge, writer/director

Following a series of shorts, Legge made a major splash with his debut feature “LOLA,” which premiered at the 2022 Locarno Film Festival. A lo-fi found-footage sci-fi shot on 16mm and 35mm during lockdown, the film — starring Emma Appleton and Stefanie Martini — went on to win numerous awards, including the 2023 Méliès d’or for the Best European Fantastic Film of the year. The Dubliner is currently working with production company Cowtown Pictures on the new musical feature.

Antonia Campbell-Hughes, actor/writer/director

Having made a name for herself as an actor and starring in numerous films and TV shows — including the likes of “Bright Star,” “Albert Nobbs,” “Under the Skin” and “The Other Me” — Campbell-Hughes unveiled her directorial debut “It Is in Us All” in 2022. The well-received thriller, starring Cosmo Jarvis and Claes Bang (and Campbell-Hughes in a supporting role) won the extraordinary cinematic vision prize at SXSW, and was later nominated for two British Independent Film Awards. While she’s still busy acting (she recently played Marie Antoinette in Starz’ “Dangerous Liaisons” and played the lead in psychological thriller “Cordelia”), Campbell-Hughes is currently in pre-production on “Diamond Shitter,” her next feature as writer/director with support from the BFI and Screen Ireland.

Ferdia Murphy, production designer

Murphy has worked as a freelance production designer across film, TV, commercials and stage for several years, earning three nominations for best set designer at the Irish Theatre Awards and with screen credits including Irish features such as “LOLA,” “The Other Lamb” and “Handsome Devil.” He recently stepped into the studio world as a production designer on Warner Bros.’ upcoming supernatural horror “The Watchers,” produced by genre master M. Night Shyamalan and starring Dakota Fanning.

Gwen Jeffares-Hourie, costume designer

County Wicklow-based Jeffares-Hourie started out as a costume trainee on John Carney’s much-loved musical “Sing Street,” slowly working her way up through the department until she designed her first feature 2019’s “Broken Law,” followed by “You Are Not My Mother” in 2020. More recently, she’s stepped up even further, serving as costume designer on the upcoming Nicolas Cage-starrer “Arcadian” and Universal’s big-budget monster horror “Abigail.”

Karen Cogan, writer

Having cut her teeth writing for hit Irish comedy series “The Young Offenders,” Cogan recently worked on arguably the biggest TV show to come out of the country, “Bad Sisters.” The Cork native was in the writers room and wrote on both the first season of Apple’s BAFTA-winning dark comedy and its upcoming second outing, while also co-writing and exec-producing ITV’s four-part “Holding,” based on the novel by chat show icon Graham Norton, and seeing her script “Fled” — a darkly comic drama involving a pregnant girl and a nun in 1990s Ireland — top the 2019 Brit List. She’s currently developing projects with Netflix, the BBC, Channel 4, ITV and Lookout Point.

Kate Dolan, writer/director

Dolan’s short 2018 horror “Catcalls” — a revenge thriller about a sexual predator who gets what’s coming to him — marked the writer/director out as a major new talent. Her debut feature, 2021’s “You Are Not My Mother,” another horror, this time about a young woman whose missing mother returns with a radically different personality, elevated the Dubliner to the next level. The film bowed in Toronto and was nominated for six awards at the Irish Academy Awards. Since then Dolan has directed episodes of hit Irish gangland drama “Kin” and the BBC thriller “The Tourist.”

Louise Bagnall, writer/director

Since joining hand-drawn animation powerhouse Cartoon Saloon in Kilkenny, filmmaker and director Bagnall has worked on features such as “The Breadwinner” and “Wolfwalkers,” both of which were Oscar-nominated, served as assistant director on Nora Twomey’s “My Father’s Dragon, and landed an Oscar nomination herself for her short “Late Afternoon.” With this experience in the bank, she’s now working with the studio on her first animated feature as director, “Julián,” about a boy who wants to become a mermaid and based on Jessica Love’s book “Julián Is a Mermaid.”

Narayan Van Maele, cinematographer

Based in the West of Ireland, Van Maele has shot feature films such as Kate Dolan’s “You Are Not My Mother” and Govinda Van Maele’s “Gutland,” both of which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, plus Ian Hunt Duffy’s “Double Blind,” Ross Killeen’s documentary “Love Yourself Today” and Ken Wardrop’s latest feature “So This Is Christmas.” Van Maele was also behind the lens on the short film “An Irish Goodbye,” which last year won an Oscar, a BAFTA and an Irish Academy Award.

Richard Bolger, producer

After setting up Hail Mary Pictures in 2018, Bolger has produced films such as 2020’s “Here Are The Young Men,” starring Anya Taylor-Joy, and “The Cellar,” which bowed in SXSW and was picked up by Shudder. But his 2024 is looking busier than ever, with “The Cult Killer,” starring Antonio Banderas, Alice Eve and Shelley Henning having released earlier in the year, and upcoming titles including Babak Anvari’s “Hallow Road,” starring Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys, and “Clean Up Crew,” starring Melissa Leo, Banderas and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. “Hallow Road” could also take Bolger to Cannes, with the film having been submitted to the festival.

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