About Fresh Film
inspiring, nurturing and celebrating excellence in young people's filmmaking
Founded in 1997 as the Irish School’s Video Competition, Fresh Film was originally a schools competition for secondary students. It has since grown into a year round organisation with a focus on national and international filmmakers spanning the primary and secondary age groups. ‘Fresh International Film Festival’ now includes ‘Ireland’s Young Filmmaker of the Year Awards `, which constitute three sections – Junior (7-12 years) – Senior (12- 18 years) – The International (7-19 years). Each section is open to individual filmmakers, schools, youth and community groups.
Fresh Film runs programmes throughout the year under four headings; Fresh Education, Fresh International, Fresh Production and Fresh International Film Festival.
Safe to Create – Fresh Film seeks to provide a safe, productive and encouraging environment for its team, collaborators and participants.
Fresh Film is committed to comply with the Charities Regulator’s Charities Governance Code.
Fresh Film is committed to comply with the principles of good fundraising.
Meet the team
Jayne Foley
Our founder and Artistic Director, it was Jayne’s vision that brought the Fresh Film to fruition and she continues to lead the team with the same passion 25 years later.
Ciarda Tobin
From workshop leader to young filmmaker’s advocate to Manager of Fresh Film, Ciarda has been with Fresh since 2001, no one knows the filmmakers or the organisation better than Ciarda
Conor Hooper
Conor is the newest member of the team, with a. background in filmmaking with young people, Conor joins Fresh as the Outreach coordinator.
The Panel
Fresh regularly recruits professionals for its panel of filmmakers, facilitators, event managers, support team and technicians. We vet and run induction for the panellists so that they are ready to deliver the programme and activities. If you have a skill that might be a good fit with Fresh’s programme please contact us with your expression of interest and a cv to [email protected]
the board members
Sean Molony
Secondary School Art Teacher at St. Jame's CBS Dublin, who has produced a number of award winning short films with young people. As an independent director Sean has produced two short films. 2011.
Nicole Dunphy
Entrepreneur with a BA in English and History of Art from Trinity College with years of experience in radio at Lyric FM, Live Event Producer and specialises in marketing, public relations, creative concepts, programme making, management, multimedia, design, event production and management. 2017.
Alison McCloskey (Sec.)
Project Manager BFI Future Film Academy, with 19 years experience in coordinating youth and community-led film projects in London and has produced over 200 short films with young people. with the BFI Future Film Academy she has been responsible for training 20 young people aged 16-19 in preparing to work in the tv and film industry for the past 7 years. Alison is an active member in the Youth Cinema Network . 2018.
AMY Louise O'Callaghan (Chair)
is an Education Officer at the Irish Film Institute, assisting in a variety of different areas including the delivery of the IFI Schools Programme, audience development and the creation of a new platform, IFI Careers Space. She completed her BA and MA in Film and Screen Media at University College Cork. 2021. .
Paudie Baggot
is an award winning director focussing on character comedy with a strong sense of Visual absurdity. Graduate of the National Film School in IADT (BA Hons in Film and Television Production & Direction) he now co-owns and operates his own Production Company, Escape Pod Media, developing short and feature films, television shows and online content. 2020.
Paul C. Ryan
is the Regional Film Manager for Film in Limerick, an Innovate Limerick project that promotes and supports film production in the Midwest. His background is in talent development in the screen industries and in creative business development. He has also worked as an educator and producer in Denmark and the UK. 2020.
