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1:00pm<\/b> *** FREE ENTRY ***<\/b><\/a><\/font><\/center><\/p>\n Judges <\/font><\/font>Colm Scully<\/a><\/b><\/font> &<\/font> Paul Casey<\/a><\/b><\/font>, will select one International winner to receive the \u00d3 Bh\u00e9al<\/strong> International award for best poetry-film, designed by glass artist Michael Ray<\/strong><\/a>, plus a cash prize of 500 euros. The best Irish Poetry Film will win a cash prize of 250 euros. Winners will be announced directly after the shortlist screenings at the Cork Arts Theatre, and online on Monday 2nd November.<\/p>\n Sunday<\/strong><\/font> 1st November<\/strong><\/font> @ 1.00pm<\/strong><\/font><\/center><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n <\/font> Poem: Walking<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n Synopsis<\/strong> – A poem about sandhills, dog-walking, and the fragility of all things. The film weaves between dog walkers, dogs, and the bird life of Liscannor Bay, echoing lines from another of Mark Roper’s poems, ‘More’, “Let one thing lead to another. Let there be no end to looking.” <\/font><\/p>\n Director: Grace Wells<\/strong> (Ireland)<\/font><\/p>\n Grace Wells is an award-winning eco-poet and poetry-film maker. Nature, spirit-of-place, and our myriad ecological crises are the large themes of her writing. Grace has published three books of poetry with Dedalus Press, most recently, ‘The Church of the Love of the World’ which was shortlisted for the Farmgate Caf\u00e9 National Poetry Award and the UK Laurel Prize. She is currently Writer-in-Residence for Hometree Charity’s Dinnseanchas eco-arts project, working to build community resilience within vibrant natural habitats. In August 2026, she was selected as the recipient of the inaugural PFGI poetry bursary in association with Poetry Ireland.<\/font> Poem: Rosehip Syrup<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n Synopsis<\/strong> – This poetry film is a collaboration between poet Roisin Kelly and filmmaker Sarah Corcoran, using archival footage from the Northern Ireland Screen collection. <\/p>\n Here is an account of Roisin’s inspiration behind the project: ‘Watching this archival footage inspired me to write a piece based on my sense of disconnection to the north of Ireland, where generations of my family lived including myself until 1994. I have previously written about this sense of loss and my longing to return to the city of Belfast, and this time I drew on my great-grandmother\u2019s upbringing on a farm in County Down. I wanted to imbue the piece with this childlike fantasy of being able to reach out to my ancestors via the land itself by invoking the rituals and history that are common to the whole of Ireland. However there is a melancholic emotion to this attempt underlaid with an adult\u2019s understanding that no one can ever truly connect with the past. ‘<\/font><\/p>\n Director: Sarah Corcoran<\/strong> (Ireland)<\/font><\/p>\n Sarah is a film director from Cork. Since 2022 she has been directing experimental shorts, music videos, fashion and poetry films. She is currently enrolled in the MA in Film and Screen Media course at UCC. Her short film Whirlybird had its debut screening at the Magikal Charm Film Festival in NYC in December 2025 where it was awarded the title ‘In The Spirit of Kenneth Anger’. Her previous experimental short ‘Unseen Guest’ was selected for screening at Triskel Christchurch cinema for 4 consecutive nights, at Lift-Off Global Film Festival, IndieCork festival and CineSalon. She was also invited by Film Ireland to discuss ‘Unseen Guest’ on their podcast. In August 2023 her short film ‘Still Life’ was featured on globally acclaimed magazine Wonderland<\/em>. She immerses herself fully in the filmmaking process by taking on multiple roles – including writing, producing, directing, cinematography, editing, set design, sound design, costume design and performance.<\/font> Poem: Famine Path to Killnasoolagh <\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n Synopsis<\/strong> – Skin Covered Axe is a short poetry film set on the Famine Path to Killnasoolagh in County Clare. Mary Grogan\u2019s poem imagines the voice of a starving labourer paid pennies to build the path. As the camera follows its stones towards Killnasoolagh churchyard, his thoughts turn to hunger, the people dying around him and a dream of escape to America. The path becomes a quiet reminder of the lives and labour held all around us. Director: Conor Madden<\/strong> (Ireland)<\/font><\/p>\n Conor Madden is a director, actor, theatre and film maker based in County Clare, Ireland. With almost twenty years\u2019 professional experience, his work moves between live performance and film, with a particular interest in how the camera can reshape performance and create new possibilities for storytelling. His practice is collaborative, playful and socially engaged. He has developed work with actors, young people, disabled artists and adults with intellectual disabilities, creating environments in which participants can contribute meaningfully without being pressured to perform in a prescribed way. As an artist with a disability, Conor brings a strong awareness of access to his directing practice. He is interested in work that is artistically ambitious, emotionally honest and shaped with, not merely made about, the people involved.<\/font> Poem: And so it is…<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n Synopsis<\/strong> – The film is a meditation on humanity\u2019s loss of meaning, morality, and connection to the natural world. It portrays a civilisation that has replaced spirituality with materialism and empty symbols, allowing false leaders and hollow promises to flourish. Nature is being destroyed through drought, waste, and disregard, while the image of the four horses suggests an approaching reckoning or apocalypse. The final movement turns inward: humanity is blind to the truth it is creating, hiding behind a \u201cclandestine veil\u201d while continuing recklessly toward destruction.<\/font><\/p>\n Director: Thomas O’Donoghue<\/strong> (Ireland)<\/font><\/p>\n Thomas O’Donoghue is an Irish filmmaker whose work spans short narrative films, poetic explorations, and experimental cinema. Operating primarily as a producer, writer and director, O’Donoghue creates films that probe human experience, memory, and existential themes. His works are characterised by meticulous storytelling, visual poetry, and a strong auteurial voice, often blending realism with philosophical reflection.<\/font> Poem: Bela Fisterra<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n Synopsis<\/strong> – Bela Fisterra accompanies and expands the journey of the Irish poet Paddy Bushe to Fisterra, the terminal coast where the land seems to end and start again. The poem, originally written in Gaelic, unfolds his vision of the end of the world in four languages\u2014Galician, Gaelic, Spanish, and English\u2014and is embodied in four distinct voices: David Clarck, the poet Yolanda Casta\u00f1o, Pepe Formoso, recipient of the text, and Bushe himself, who appears at the end of the video reciting in Gaelic. <\/p>\n In this visual tour of the Costa da Morte, its dunes and paths form a dialogue with the words to interrogate the traveler: why come here, what horizon are you looking for, where the end of the earth really begins. With music by Carlos N\u00fa\u00f1ez, this piece intertwines landscape, language and memory to turn Bela Fisterra, the end of the earth, into a starting point rather than an arrival.<\/font><\/p>\n Director: Juan Lesta<\/strong> (Ireland \/ Spain)<\/font><\/p>\n Born in A Coru\u00f1a, Spain, 1971, Juan Lesta is a visual artist and audiovisual director whose recent work explores the intersection between landscape, music and perception. He also creates interventions in natural and exhibition spaces through video, immersive and light installations. Co-Director of the documentary Versograms (Verses & Frames), the first documentary dedicated to the international phenomenon of video poetry, he has directed video poems for important Galician poets such as Dores Tembr\u00e1s, Ant\u00eda Otero or Est\u00edbaliz Espinosa. <\/p>\n As a music video director, he has created videos for artists such as Roger & Brian Eno; his projects have been exhibited at leading venues such as the Centre Pompidou Metz (Metz, France), the Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum (HNF) (Paderborn, Germany), the Centro Galego de Arte Contempor\u00e1nea (CGAC) (Santiago de Compostela, Spain), the Fundaci\u00f3n pazos Cuchillo, the Fundaci\u00f3n D\u00edaz Caneja and the Museo Centro Gai\u00e1s, as well as in many festivals and collections.<\/font> Poem: Dublin Dust<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n Synopsis<\/strong> – A love letter to Dublin and its inhabitants.<\/font><\/p>\n Director: Polina Cosgrave<\/strong> (Ireland)<\/font><\/p>\n Polina Cosgrave is the author of two poetry collections, My Name Is<\/em> (Dedalus Press, 2020) and Cargo<\/em> (The Gallery Press, 2024), and numerous plays and short stories. She was described as one of the most fearless and exciting voices in contemporary Irish poetry by Adam Wyeth (Poetry Review Ireland). <\/p>\n Her work has appeared on TV, radio and in many anthologies and magazines, including the Forward Prizes Book of Poetry<\/em>, Winter Papers<\/em> and The Stinging Fly<\/em>. She has been a recipient of multiple Arts Council Awards.<\/font> Poem: The Singer’s House<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n Synopsis<\/strong> – \u201cWhat do we say anymore to conjure the salt of our earth?\u201d <\/p>\n ‘Salt’ was filmed 400 meters under the surface in coastal Antrim, where machinery and poetry echo out from the depths of Ireland’s only active salt mine. Featuring and inspired by Seamus Heaney\u2019s \u201cThe Singers House\u201d, this short documentary takes a poetic view of the salt mine as both an artificial space and a natural environment, finding a sense of humanity in its alien sounds and structures.<\/font><\/p>\n Director: Conall McCauley<\/strong> (Northern Ireland)<\/font><\/p>\n Conall McCauley is an emerging Animator, Sound Artist and Filmmaker from rural Derry. He currently works for the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast, where he oversees oral history projects and produces documentary material surrounding the work of Seamus Heaney and Ciaran Carson. His sound installations and short films have played locally and internationally in exhibitions and film festivals since 2022.<\/font> Poem: Foresters\u2019 Blood<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n Synopsis<\/strong> – Filmed in a harvested commercial forestry site, Foresters’ Blood moves through drained ground, torn soil, exposed roots and felled trees. Against these images, the poem’s lament for Ireland’s lost woodlands becomes a meditation on extraction, memory and the thin line between forest and timber crop. The film connects older histories of woodland clearance with the present-day distinction between native woodland and plantation forestry.<\/font><\/p>\n Director: Philip Ryan<\/strong> (Ireland)<\/font><\/p>\n Philip Michael Ryan is a visual artist with a background in architecture based in Waterford. His practice works across moving image, installation, social art practice and site-responsive research, often examining landscape, infrastructure, ecology and the cultural systems through which places are altered, governed and remembered. He is co-founder of Nocht Studio, and his recent work has engaged with woodland ecologies, extractive land use, public participation and the traces left by economic and environmental change.<\/font> Poem: Time Piece<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n Synopsis<\/strong> – The film follows the journey of a family heirloom as it passes through multiple generations and highlights the impact it makes along the way. Based on a true story, it explores the themes of the passage of time and the interactions between an object and those that it comes into contact with. This is counterpoised by the experiences of the Irish diaspora as they journeyed to distant countries, and yet the memory of them was kept alive by the objects that they sent back to their loved ones.<\/font><\/p>\n Director: Chris Gibbons<\/strong> (Ireland)<\/font><\/p>\n Chris has lived in Ireland for over 35 years, and is a relative newcomer to poetry\/film, having enjoyed a long career as a senior lecturer in engineering and sustainability in MTU and UCC in Cork City. His films have been shown at the \u00d3 Bh\u00e9al poetry evenings in Cork City since 2025, and he has had a film shortlisted and screened at the 2025 \u00d3 Bh\u00e9al International Poetry Film Festival in November 2025. Chris is also a member of the Bristol Poetry Film Club since 2026 and has shown films there. To date his poems have been mostly narrative in nature but he is also starting to explore other genres including Haiku.<\/font> Poem: to begin again the effort<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n Synopsis<\/strong> – To Begin Again is a collaborative 3-minute poetry film uniting written word, spoken performance, cinematography, and original music. The haiku sequence by Belfast poet & playwright Una Woods is voiced by Ellen Ann Schultz, filmed by Josh Schultz, and set to an original score composed by Dillon Burns (tatu.ie). Together, the team has created a layered visual and sonic interpretation that brings the poems’ imagery and emotional resonance to life. <\/font><\/p>\n Director: Josh Schultz<\/strong> (Northern Ireland)<\/font><\/p>\n Josh Schultz first encountered the poetry of Una Woods as co-editor of You Can’t Eat Flags for Breakfast: Poets, Politicians and the Public Reflect on the Troubles<\/em>, where Una’s work stood alongside that of some of Ireland’s most celebrated poets, including Seamus Heaney, Paul Muldoon, Michael Longley and Medbh McGuckian. His professional relationship with Una continued through theatre. Josh worked as dramaturg with Una and her daughter Ellen on the staging of Una’s play Grace Before Meals at Belfast’s Lyric Theatre. What began as a creative collaboration would later become a deeply personal connection: Josh married Ellen in 2013, becoming part of the family.<\/p>\n A theatre director and producer, Josh co-founded Bedlam Theatre in Minneapolis and has directed more than 20 productions across Minneapolis, Chicago, Cork and Belfast. His work spans theatre, poetry, community arts and intercultural practice. He has also edited the poetry publications The Lonely Poets Guide to Belfast<\/em> and Brilliant Resilience: poetry, craft and photography from Co. Fermanagh<\/em>. <\/font> Poem: Dear Ecclesiastes<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n Synopsis<\/strong> – When the world doesn\u2019t hear, it\u2019s time to talk to Ecclesiastes\u2026 Has something changed under the sun? What can we all, ‘living, dead and as yet unborn’, do? When poets become soldiers and write between the (front)lines \u2026 poems become prayers!<\/p>\n A poetry film dedicated to the memory of Maksym \u201cDali\u201d Kryvtsov \u2014 a Ukrainian soldier, junior sergeant of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, poet, photographer, public figure, and volunteer, who was killed on January 7, 2024, at the age of 33 on the frontline defending Ukraine in Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine. Hero of Ukraine (2025, posthumously). As of April 2026, the verified archive contains 289 names of literary figures who have been killed in Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine since 2014. Among the deceased are poets, writers, translators, editors, publishers, librarians, and researchers, both military and civilian (according to the \u2018Nedopysani\/The Unfinished\u2019 project).<\/p>\n \u201cTo my fellow-countrymen, in Ukraine and not in Ukraine, living, dead and as yet unborn my friendly epistle<\/em>\u201d from a poem by Taras Shevchenko.<\/font><\/p>\n Director: Andrii Humennyi<\/strong> (Ireland \/ Ukraine)<\/font><\/p>\n Andrii Humennyi is a Ukrainian multimedia journalist, photographer, and filmmaker based in Ireland. He has worked across Ukraine, Poland, Romania, and Ireland, creating video content, photo stories, interviews, and digital media projects. His journalism background has shaped how he understands storytelling. It has taught him to look beyond events and explore the people, emotions, and personal experiences behind them. Through photography and videography, he has developed a visual approach rooted in observation, human connection, and an interest in the details of everyday life. He is drawn to stories that explore identity, freedom, forced displacement, resilience, and the complexity of the human experience.<\/font> Poem: The Art of Perception<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n Synopsis<\/strong> – The Art of Perception is a visual cinematic poem about the nature of human existence and our understanding of the world beyond physical reality.<\/font><\/p>\n Director: Thomas O’Donoghue<\/strong> (Ireland)<\/font><\/p>\n Thomas O’Donoghue is an Irish filmmaker whose work spans short narrative films, poetic explorations, and experimental cinema. Operating primarily as a producer, writer and director, O’Donoghue creates films that probe human experience, memory, and existential themes. His works are characterised by meticulous storytelling, visual poetry, and a strong auteurial voice, often blending realism with philosophical reflection.<\/font> Poem: First They Came For<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n
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