IFTA have announced that they will host a ‘Casting Screen Talent’ event with Academy members with renowned Casting Director Maureen Hughes on Thursday, March 5th, 2015.
Maureen has cast over 40 Irish features and 22 dramas, with credits including ‘Once’, ‘Love/Hate’, ‘Raw’ and most recently the acclaimed political biopic ‘Charlie’.
At this IFTA Academy Members event, Maureen will explore the process involved in casting for the screen such as working with the director, auditions, watching a lot of shorts and creating chemistry between actors in casting.
Maureen joined UK Casting Director Susie Figgis in 1996 to cast the lead role for Neil Jordan’s ‘The Butcher Boy’ and subsequently went freelance in film and television casting. Film credits include the low budget Irish film ‘Once’ which won an Oscar for Best Song in 2009 and ‘Six Shooter’ which won the Oscar for Best Live Short in 2006. Other films include ‘Wakewood’ with Aidan Gillen, Eva Birthistle and Timothy Spall.
She is about to begin work on a new historical drama ‘Generation’ which will shoot in May of this year and is set in the period of 1916.
Maureen operates out of the Bow Street Screen Acting Academy in Dublin where she is part of the team who run The Bow Street Programme for Screen Acting. Previously run through The Factory in Barrow Street, Hughes joined Shimmy Marcus and Paul O Connor last year to establish the new Actors Studio in Bow Street. This initiative has proved successful and the team now run an Actors Studio, Bow Street Young Filmmakers Academy and they have also recently announced a collaboration with Spotlight UK.
The IFTA Academy Members event ‘Casting Screen Talent’ will be held on Thursday, March 5th. Academy members can RSVP to academyevents@ifta.ie.
More information on this event and other IFTA events can be found on the IFTA website: www.ifta.ie.
