Docs Ireland and Northern Ireland Screen are pleased to announce the shortlisted projects for this year’s NI Screen Feature Documentary Pitching Competition.

In collaboration with Docs Ireland, Northern Ireland Screen are offering a chance to receive an award of up to £7,500 towards a pilot for a documentary feature.

The shortlisted filmmakers, selected from open application by members of the Docs Ireland and NI Screen teams, will present their projects at Docs Ireland, where they will receive feedback from a panel of leading Irish film industry players.

The pitch will take place as part of the Docs Ireland festival on Saturday June 24th at 10.30am at the Ulster Museum in Belfast. The event is free of charge but ticketed. Full details of the event are available here.

The judging panel for the event are:

Lucy Baxter – Filmmaker & Film Lecturer, QUB

Rohan Crickmar – Producer, LS Productions / Documentary Film Programmer

Nicky Coyle – Funding Executive, Northern Ireland Screen

Greg Darby – Managing Director, Yellowmoon Post-Production

Thank you to sponsor Yellowmoon for their support of this event.

SHORTLISTED PROJECTS:

And There We Were

Director: Christina Bennett

Producer: Bonnie Boyle

An exploration into how a housing estate in the west of Ireland came to be known as Little Belfast.

Behind the Green Curtain

Director: Neasa Ní Chianáin

Producer: David Rane

The climate emergency waits for no one. Our time is running out. An intimate and haunting behind-the-scenes observational climate film about a group of people determined to find answers.

The Sperm King

Director: Daire Collins & Mark Napier

Producer: Michael Mallie

One man dreams to save the world’s wildlife from mass extinction by creating a modern day Noah’s Ark that will preserve the DNA of every animal on the planet.

The Unrest Collective 

Director: Lia Campbell

Producer: Anna Callan

Since moving from Northern Ireland to Berlin, classical Bassoonist Olivia prepares for her solo debut with experimental music group “The Unrest Collective”.

With Their Backs to the Sky

Director: Erik Nuding

Producers: Kendall Fitzgerald, Angelo Andrianiaina & Keith Wilson (EP)

Bridging bat disease ecology and conservation, this collaborative journey invites us into the tightly entangled lives of bat catchers, field biologists and old-world fruit bats within the heavily exploited forest ecosystems of Madagascar. Joy persists in the face of storms that flood, mudslides that flatten and fires that consume.