We can't believe we've done 200 episodes of the podcast, but here we are. We got to celebrate this milestone in front of an amazing crowd at the FNI Fast Fest screening in The Lighthouse Cinema in Dublin last week.
We sat down with Cathy Brady and Mark O'Connor and had a wonderful chat about the life of a filmmaker in Ireland today.
Cathy Brady is a two-time IFTA-winning director, having won Best Short in 2011 for her first film Small Change and again in 2013 for Morning, which was also selected for the BFI London Film Festival 2012 and won the Short Film Nominee prize for the European Film Awards at Cork Film Festival.
In 2011, Brady directed the BIFA nominated short Rough Skin (written by Laura Lomas and starring Vicky McClure) as part of Channel 4’s Coming Up scheme. Her short film, Wasted, competed at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2013. In the same year, Brady was named one of Screen Daily’s ‘Stars of Tomorrow’.
In 2014, Brady directed on the BAFTA-nominated drama-thriller series Glue. Most recently, Brady directed Stefanie Preissner’s TV comedy series Can’t Cope/Won’t Cope for Dead Pan Pictures and RTE, which is currently showing on BBC Three. Her debut feature as writer-director, Wildfire, is currently in development, and will be produced by Carlo Cresto-Dina (The Wonders, Cannes Grand Jury Prize 2014) along with Cowboy Films.

Mark O’ Connor is a graduate of Film Operations and Production from Ballyfermot College and directing from The New York Film Academy. He also holds a masters in screenwriting from IADT. Mark made over 60 short films, before writing and directing his debut feature film ‘Between the Canals’. Between the Canals was highly acclaimed with Film Ireland calling it “The best Irish film in a long long time”. It was the acting debut for Barry Keoghan and many of the cast went on to star in leading roles in the hit RTE television series ‘Love Hate’.
Mark’s second feature film ‘King of the travellers’ was selected for festivals around the world and received a UK and Irish cinema and DVD release and was released in 150 territories worldwide on VOD. ‘Stalker’, Mark’s third feature film won the Underground Film Festival and Runner up Prize at the Galway Film festival. Mark’s fourth feature film ‘Cardboard Gangsters’ was the highest grossing Irish film of the year and received 5 stars reviews. It won 6 awards at the Manchester Film Festival including Best Film, Best Actor, Outstanding Cinematography, Outstanding Screenplay, Outstanding Director, and Film of the Festival. It also won Best Film at The Newport Beach Film Festival in Los Angeles. Worldwide rights to the film were bought by Netflix.
Mark then wrote and directed a six-part crime drama for Virgin Media UK/Ireland called ‘Darklands’. It received critical acclaim and an average of 450,000 viewers per episode and was recently sold to Australian television network SBS. Mark is currently in development on a number of projects including a comedy drama ‘Oui Cannes’ set in Ireland and France and is a major television series being produced by Samson Films.

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