Docs Ireland is pleased to announce the projects for the sixth edition of its festival marketplace. The two day event will take place on Friday June 27th & Saturday June 28th, at 2 Royal Avenue in Belfast city centre.
Twenty-nine Irish, UK and international projects will pitch to international decision makers at the marketplace, including BBC NI, Braidmade Films, B-Rated International, Breakout Pictures, Channel 4, CorkIFF, Doc Institute Canada, Doc Lab Poland, Doc Society, Documentary Association of Europe, Dok. fest München, Dogwoof, European Film Academy, Filmotor, Glasgow Film Festival, Hot Docs, IDFA, Irish Language Broadcast Fund, Jacob Burns Film Center, Jambika Docs, Ji.hlava IDFF, Kraków FF, Lightdox, Mediawan, Millennium Docs Against Gravity, Movies That Matter Festival, MUBI, NI Screen, POV, RAINA Films, Rise & Shine World Sales, RTÉ, Sarajevo Film Festival, Screen Ireland, Sheffield DocFest, Sideways Film, Stranger Film Sales, SVT, TG4, We Are Parable and Wildcard Distribution
The Docs Ireland Marketplace is an opportunity for filmmakers to meet with leading international documentary industry decision makers, including international funders, broadcasters, distributors and exhibitors on a one to one basis. It is the only marketplace dedicated to documentary on the island of Ireland, providing an opportunity for filmmakers to pitch their project through carefully matched meetings organised by the Docs Ireland team.
The full list of selected projects are:
ARTIST MOTHER SEER
Director/Producer: Paul Sng / Rebecca Wolff
Diana James finds catharsis in putting the pieces of her late mother’s artistic career
back together.
D-DAY: A COMPLICATED ANNIVERSARY
Director/Producer: Brendan Culleton
Are commemorations more about the present than the past?
DODGEBALL: A TRUE NORTHERN IRISH STORY
Director/Producer: Giordano Bonora Groome / Giordano Bonora Groome, Elisa Bonora
Executive Producer: Paddy McCaughey, Melanie Miller
For the first time in dodgeball history, Northern Ireland takes a shot at the World Cup. These scrappy underdogs defy the odds, turning every throw into a fight for glory. Will it be enough to bring home the gold at the 2024 Dodgeball World Cup?
HEARING VOICES GROUP
Director/Producer: Leo Regan / Isabel Freer, Kwesi Dickson,
Hearing Voices Group is an immersive experience into the world of voice hearing, closely following members of the Bradford Hearing Voices Group, charting the building of trust and relationships with others and their voices.
INNER LANDS
Director/Producer: Seán Mullan
A meditation on vision as Peter Ryan runs the length of Ireland in 5 days with 90% vision loss.
JOHN LENNON’S ISLAND
Director/Producer: Gary Lennon
Executive Producer: Niamh Fagan
Dreaming of an idyllic retreat away from Beatlemania, John Lennon bought Dorinish Island in the beautiful Clew Bay, off the west coast of Ireland. Despite multiple trips to the area, Lennon never got to live on the island, instead he gave it to Sid Rawle AKA “King of the Hippies” and a group of like-minded souls, as they attempted to create a new form of society.
THE KNOCKOUT
Director / Producer: Alex Harron / John Archer
Mia St John is a fighter. Her father was a violent alcoholic, she and her husband struggled with addiction, she turned to boxing and fought her way to 5-times World Champion, before losing her son and ex-husband to suicide. This is her untold story.
THE LONELIEST BOY IN THE WORLD
Director / Producer: Medb Johnstone / Ann Ní Chíobháin
Executive Producer: Cormac Hargaden
The island never leaves you. The last surviving islander evacuated from the now-deserted Blasket Islands makes a final journey home.
LONG ROAD HOME
Director / Producer: Paul Webster / Zlata Filipovic, Anna Rodgers
Raucous and emotive filmic road trip through contemporary Ireland capturing the energy and anger of Ireland’s youth.
LONG WAY HOME
Director / Producer: Frank Delaney / Cormac Fox, Colmán Mac Cionnaith
Irish musicians journey to reservations of the Choctaw Nation uncovering the story of a one hundred-and-eighty year-old act of kindness.
MO AND ME
Director/Producer: Henrietta Norton & Alison Millar / Jackie Doyle, Rachel Lysaght
MO+ME is a fierce and intimate reclamation of Mo Mowlam’s legacy—told by her stepdaughter Hen, who sets out to uncover not only what Mo achieved, but what she was forced to leave behind. Through a deeply personal and political investigation, the film asks: what does peace truly take—and who keeps it alive?
NEAR LIGHT – SECOND LIVES OF MURDERERS
Director / Producer: Niccolo V. Salvato / Mara Cracaleanu
The lives of three young inmates interweave as they strive to rebuild their lives, grappling with guilt and societal misconceptions.
Winner of the Docs Ireland Prize at East Doc Platform 2025
OUT FOR GOD
Director / Producer: Anna Rodgers / Zlata Filipovic
LGBTQ+ individuals confront faith and identity in a powerful exploration of resilience, spiritual longing, and life beyond religion.
RIDER NEARBY
Director / Producer: Tom Burke / Jessie Fisk, Thomas Kelly
A film about precarious lives of delivery riders who criss cross the city centre but live at society’s margins
THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS
Director / Producer: Ross Killeen / Louise Byrne
A Shakespearean tragedy about a man and a country cursed with a fatal flaw and an inability to see it.
THE SIXTH STORY
Director / Producer: Ahmed Abd / Arij Al Soltan
Ahmed and Ali reunite to piece together the fragments of their memory as witnesses to the sectarian violence in Iraq.
SOMETHING THAT WAS OURS
Director / Producer: Rosie Reed Hillman / Sandra Leeming
Executive Producer: Amy Hobby
STWO connects us with women in mid-life carving their own path to healing in this multi-character portrait. A tender, cinematic quest revealing their lives as witches.
SUMOLAND
Director / Producer: Nicky Larkin
Executive Producer: Alex Fegan
A trip inside the beating heart of the British sumo scene – kitchen sink sumo!
TRONA
Director / Producer: Emanuele Mengotti / Kristian van der Heyden, Leonardo Barille
What does it mean to grow up in a town that is so hostile that even grass can’t grow?
WHAT DAY ARE WE !N?
Director / Producer: Hussein Zuhour
Amid the devastation of war, a former actor from Gaza documents his harrowing 471-day journey of survival with his family, as they cling to hope amidst loss, displacement, and the unrelenting question: “What day are we on?”
Selected by Filmlab Palestine
WHITETHROAT
Director / Producer: Kathleen Harris / Ross Whitaker
An ornithologist tracks the epic migration of Ireland’s whitethroat across Europe and Africa and reveals how interconnected we all are.
ALL THE LOVELY ANIMALS
Director: Kathleen Harris
Three determined women devote their lives to rescuing abused animals from across Ireland – a harrowing, heartwarming and sometimes hilarious task that makes us wonder: what is an animal?
Participating as part of the IGNITE-Docs Talent Development Programme
JUNE 1982: A MASSACRE
Director/Producer: Rabie Mustapha / Andy Wilkinson
The memories of an under-documented massacre haunt the inhabitants of a Palestinian neighbourhood in South Lebanon.
Participating as part of the IGNITE-Docs Talent Development Programme
SAINT MICHAEL
Director/ Producer: Niall Sheerin / Emma Keane
A grief-stricken brother uses home videos, diary entries, tattoo art, and paintings left by his late older brother to reconcile himself with his one-time childhood hero, their sometimes difficult relationship, and the huge loss his passing has left behind.
Participating as part of the IGNITE-Docs Talent Development Programme
SAVING SODOMY FROM ULSTER
Director: Lewis Doherty
At the height of The Troubles, a generation of queer people battle their erasure against a homophobic political campaign and oppressive police treatment, formulating a path to peace.
Participating as part of the IGNITE-Docs Talent Development Programme
SEX EDUCATION (FOR ADULTS)
Director: Nicola Leddy
In Ireland we have never known what to do about sex, let alone how to embrace it, but one woman is on a mission to completely change that forever.
Participating as part of the IGNITE-Docs Talent Development Programme
OFF ROPE
Director/ Producer: Katie McFadden / Simeon Costello
In the beauty of the Austrian Alps, a 14-year-old visually impaired boy follows in his mother’s ski tracks, learning to navigate adolescence and the world without sight in this sensorial coming-of-age documentary.
Participating as part of the IGNITE-Docs Talent Development Programme
TAPE ME AWAY FROM HOME
Producer: Austin Kenny
In a pre-telephone era, a story of emigration (and much more besides), is recorded to cassette by those who left, and by those left behind.
Participating as part of the IGNITE-Docs Talent Development Programme
AN TIGH
Directors: Medb Johnstone, Seán Keeley
The story of how a small pub in the Connemara Gaeltacht changed music forever.
Participating as part of the IGNITE-Docs Talent Development Programme