The Directors Village is a 5-day on-site European residence training program taking place in September during the SHIFT Film Festival in Heerlen organised by STE-partner CineSud, in collaboration with Screen Talent Europe.
The program is aimed at emerging writer-directors and limited to 8 people, designed to enhance and develop the skills of the participants and help them prepare for their next short film project.
The Directors Village takes place in Roermond, Netherlands and participants will work on script development, honing their director's vision, and expanding on their actor-direction skills with coaches during group sessions and networking events while also learning from their peers to bring their projects closer to realisation.
Irish residents interested in taking part were invited to apply through Ardán, the Screen Talent Europe Network partner in Ireland, with the fee for participation covered by the National Talent Academy Film & TV.
Final selections were made by CineSud for the Directors Village, and Aisling Byrne was selected to represent Ireland.
Aisling is a theatre and filmmaker from Co. Kildare and the Artistic Director of award winning inclusive arts organisation Run of the Mill. She is also the co-founder of documentary theatre collective Talking Shop Ensemble.
Her short film script Misread was recently awarded the RTÉ Short Film Commission and premiered at the Galway Film Fleadh, co-directed by Sinead O’Loughlin.
Her narrative short debut Headspace premiered at Cork International Film Festival winning both the Academy Award qualifying Grand Prix Irish Short Award and the candidacy for the European Film Awards 2023.
In 2023 she was selected as one of 12 emerging female filmmakers for residential talent lab ‘Creator’ (X Pollinator/ Screen Ireland). In 2023 she collaborated across the All Abilities Casting initiative alongside Ardán, The National Talent Academy and the BAI, which is aimed at levelling the playing field for learning disabled talent in Ireland. She is a resident filmmaker with Dublin based production company Arcade Film.
The National Talent Academy Film & TV is an initiative of Screen Ireland managed by Ardán.
