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This year’s festival boasts another exceptional selection of guests bringing both filmmakers and their subjects to the IFI stage for in-depth Q&As.
English filmmaker and producer Sophie Fiennes, renowned for blending observational documentary with staged performance in works including Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami, will participate in a Q&A following her latest film Acting. Ukrainian filmmaker, veteran and human rights activist Alisa Kovalenko explores resilience, justice and the human impact of war alongside survivor advocate and Chair of SEMA Ukraine Iryna Dovhan whose story features in Traces.
Bringing us the Irish premiere of All Rivers Spill Their Stories To The Sea is the acclaimed director of My Fat Friend Jeanie Finley making two guest apperances across the festival in a post-screening Q&A and again on our Spotlight panel where attendees will gain invaluable industry insights and riveting debate and discussion on issues facing documentarians, aspiring and established, today. Also joining the Spotlight panel will be DCU’s Tom Burke, and film producer and chair Daniel Hegarty.
We also have plenty of Irish talent to showcase, with award-winning Belfast filmmaker Ross McClean, screening his debut feature Magilligan; filmmaker and writer Sinéad O’Shea, with All About The Money which had its premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and Oisín Mistéil, writer and director whose debut feature documentary Try! won Best Irish Feature Documentary at the Galway Film Fleadh in 2026.
We have an unmissible opportunity to see three pioneering feminist filmakers in conversation; Anne Crilly, artist, activist and director of Mother Ireland will take a seat with Margo Harkin, who has spent more than four decades documenting social and political injustices through acclaimed documentaries and feature films and Trish McAdam, visual artist, documentary filmmaker and founding member of Temple Bar Studios and the Screen Directors Guild of Ireland.
We are also honoured to speak with activist Jackie Fox, the campaigner behind Coco’s Law in a Q&A with director Gerard Walsh, and host Maria Walsh MEP, and advocate for mental health, LGBTQ+ equality and youth empowerment.
Stay tuned for guest bios and further announcements!
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Wednesday 23rd (19.30): Bucks Harbor + Q&A with director Pete Muller Thursday 24th (18.10): Try! + Q&A with director Oisín Mistéil Thursday 24th (18.20): Traces + Q&A with director Alisa Kovalenko and activist Iryna Dovhan Friday 25th (11.30): Spotlight: Rich and/or Famous: The Visibility of Documentary Making Today – panel discussion Friday 25th (18.10): All Rivers Spill Their Secrets to the Sea + Q&A with director Jeanie Finlay Saturday 26th (14.20): Magilligan + Q&A with director Ross McClean Saturday 26th (14.45): Adam’s Apple + Q&A with writer Adam Sieswerda Saturday 26th (17.30): The Siege of Paradise + Q&A with director Gar O’Rourke Saturday 26th (20.00): All About the Money + Q&A with director Sinéad O’Shea Sunday 27th (13.20): Mother Ireland + panel discussion with Anne Crilly, Margo Harkin and Trish McAdam Sunday 27th (16.00): Acting + Q&A with director Sophie Fiennes Sunday 27th (19.30): Coco’s Law + Q&A with Jackie Fox
BIOS
Pete Muller Pete Muller is an American photographer, filmmaker, visual artist and professor based in New York City and Portland, Maine. His work focuses on masculinity, conflict and human ecology. He has won awards from World Press Photo, Pictures of the Year International, The Overseas Press Club and others. He is a current storytelling fellow at the National Geographic Society.
Oisín Mistéil Oisín Mistéil is a Irish writer/director whose debut feature documentary, Try! premiered at Sheffield DocFest and won Best Irish Feature Documentary at the Galway Film Fleadh in 2026. With a background in editing, Oisín directed the documentaries Ar Thóir na Crown Jewels and Go mBeirimid Beo for TG4. He won a Celtic Media Award for the comedy series Le Ceangal, which he co-wrote and directed. He recently co-directed and produced the feature doc I.D., slated for released in early 2027, and is passionate about bringing marginalised voices to the big screen.
Alisa Kovalenko Alisa Kovalenko is an award-winning Ukrainian documentary filmmaker, veteran, and human rights activist whose work explores resilience, justice, and the human impact of war. She gained international recognition through her creative documentaries Alisa in Warland (IDFA 2015) and Home Games (Sheffield Doc/Fest 2018), followed by We Will Not Fade Away, which premiered at Berlinale 2023 and received more than 20 international awards. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion, she volunteered and fought on the front line for several months before returning to filmmaking. Drawing on this existential experience, she created the deeply personal documentary My Dear Theo (CPH 2025), which received multiple international awards, including Best Human Rights Documentary at Dokufest and Best Documentary in the Central and Eastern Europe Competition at Astra Film Festival. A former captive and survivor of conflict-related sexual violence, Kovalenko is a member of the survivor-led organization SEMA Ukraine and an active human rights advocate. Her personal experience and activism led her to create the documentary Traces, which premiered at Berlinale 2026, where it received the Panorama Audience Award for Best Documentary.
Iryna Dovhan Iryna Dovhan is a Ukrainian volunteer, human rights activist, and survivor-advocate. Born in Yasynuvata, Donetsk Oblast, she graduated from Donetsk National University and has a diverse professional background. After surviving captivity in eastern Ukraine in 2014, Iryna transformed her personal experience into human rights advocacy. She became one of the first survivor-activists in Ukraine to publicly address conflict-related sexual violence committed by Russian forces and brought together other survivors to build the country’s first survivor-led movement for recognition, support, and justice. In 2019, Iryna co-founded SEMA Ukraine and has since served as its Chair. SEMA Ukraine is the country’s first survivor-led network advocating for recognition, survivor support, and accountability for conflict-related sexual violence committed during Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. She works with survivors across the country—both women and men—supporting them in safely sharing their testimonies and seeking justice under international humanitarian law.
Jeanie Finlay Jeanie Finlay is a British documentary filmmaker and artist known for intimate, award-winning work that resonates globally. In 2026 she premiered her tenth feature; All Rivers Spill Their Stories to the Sea, at CPH:DOX, where it was nominated for the F:ACT Award. She has made films for HBO, BBC and IFC, including five films for the acclaimed BBC Storyville strand. Whether inviting audiences to share the extra(ordinary) journey of a British transgender man pregnant with his child in the BIFA-nominated Seahorse (2019); to explore Teesside’s last surviving record shop in cult hit Sound It Out (2011); or to discover the small stories at the heart of the worlds biggest TV show, in the Emmy-nominated Game of Thrones:The Last Watch (2019), Jeanie unfurls layered, intricate stories, with emotional intimacy, pathos and humour. Other titles include the provocative and compassionate Your Fat Friend (2023), and a pair of prescient music industry rollercoasters – BIFA and Grierson-nominated The Great Hip Hop Hoax (2013), and the BIFA-winning Orion: The Man Who Would Be King (2015). Jeanie is a Chicken & Egg Awardee and a Sheffield Docfest inspiration award winner with retrospectives at Criterion, BFI, MoMI NYC, and Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. The recipient of an honorary Doctorate of arts in recognition of her contribution to documentary, Jeanie is a member of AMPAS, BAFTA, and FWD-Doc. She is founder of the production company Glimmer Films and co-founder of its pioneering, creative distribution arm Glimmerama with creative producer and head of business affairs, Suzanne Alizart.
Daniel Hegarty Daniel Hegarty lectures in documentary practice and digital editing at Griffith College. A true film lover, he is also the head of production at Marmalade Films, the documentary production company he and Tanya Doyle established in 2008. Over a successful and colourful career, Daniel has built an impressive portfolio of production and post-production experience on commercials, promos, short docs, TV single docs, TV series and feature length documentaries. He has received notable awards and nominations for his documentaries. Daniel leads the Factual & Creative Documentary Committee for Screen Producers Ireland.
Tom Burke Tom Burke has been making film and video projects of varying scales and styles for over a decade. Working primarily in the documentary form, he often assumes a shooting director role, and more often than not will be the editor of his own films. Regardless of format or output medium, the goal is alwaysthe same; telling stories honestly, simply and with respect for those in front of the lens.In 2018, his feature documentary ‘Losing Alaska’ premiered at the IDFA documentary festival in Amsterdam and is currently touring festivals worldwide. In early 2019, his television documentary ‘Shooting the Darkness’ premiered to critical acclaim in Ireland, France and Germany and premiered on the BBC in late 2020.Tom is currently working on a slate of factual projects and is an assistant Professor at Dublin City University
Ross McClean Ross McClean is a filmmaker from Belfast. His first short film, Hydebank (2019), premiered at DOK Leipzig, IDFA, Hot Docs and Clermont-Ferrand, and won Best Short Documentary at Galway, London Short FF, Docs Ireland and Leeds. His following short, Echo (2023), premiered at IDFA, True/False, Sheffield DocFest and Camerimage. Ross’ most recent film, No Mean City (2025), premiered at Visions du Réel, won a Golden Frog for Best Short Documentary at Camerimage, Best Director at Cork International Film Festival, and Best British/Irish Short Film at Leeds International FIlm Festival and Docs Ireland. It has also been nominated for an IFTA award. His debut feature-length documentary, Magilligan (2026), supported by DocSociety, Screen Ireland and Arte, premiered in international competition at Visions Du Réel.
Adam Sieswerda Adam Sieswerda (he/him) is a recent graduate of Columbia University with degrees in creative writing and English. In his free time, he writes, produces original music, and hikes. ADAM’S APPLE is his first feature-length film collaboration with his mother, Amy Jenkins.
Gar O’Rourke Gar O’Rourke is an award-winning Irish director. His work spans across documentaries, branded films, commercials, & art films. He has directed projects with clients such as Netflix, Canon, BBC Storyville, Paramount+, Visa, Patagonia, Heineken, Sony, Dyson, CBS, France TV and Irish Museum of Modern Art. His film work has won awards and competed in some of the world’s top film festivals, along with being acquired by some of the biggest broadcasters in North America and Europe. Gar’s debut feature documentary, Sanatorium, had its World Premiere at CPH:DOX in Copenhagen in their main international competition, DOX:AWARD (in late March 2025). The film was acquired by BBC Storyville for their Oscar-winning features strand, and was produced by Sundance & BAFTA winning Venom Films, MET Films and BBC Storyville. The film was subsequently selected as Ireland’s Official Entry for Best International Film at the 2026 Oscars, and was long listed in two categories: Best International Film and Best Documentary Film. He is a member of the Screen Directors Guild Of Ireland.
Sinéad O’Shea Sinéad O’Shea is a filmmaker and writer. Her latest feature All About The Money premiered in the World Documentary Competition in Sundance 2026. Sinéad’s previous film Blue Road – The Edna O’Brien Story is the most successful Irish documentary to have been released at the UK/Irish box office. Her latest feature All About The Money premiered in the World Documentary Competition in Sundance 2026.
Margo Harkin Margo Harkin is one of Ireland’s most versatile and respected filmmakers – having directed and produced fiction and documentary films for over forty years. Her work includes an invaluable chronicle of Northern Ireland’s recent political history. Spanning over four decades, Harkin’s work has consistently challenged societal narratives, giving voice to the silenced and bearing witness to the social and political upheavals that have shaped the contemporary Irish landscape.
Anne Crilly Anne Crilly is a filmmaker, writer and activist based in Derry. She won awards for her 1988 documentary documentary Mother Ireland, a seminal work of Irish feminist film. Her later work, which includes short film Limbo (2001), has explored a range of social justice issues, particularly women’s history and grief and closure.
Trish McAdam Since production of her early shorts in the 1980s, Trish McAdam has created a vibrant and varied body of work, embracing a range of forms and subjects and retaining a distinct, independent voice. She became interested in filmmaking after working in New York with photographer Nan Goldin and Super 8 filmmaker Vivienne Dick. A co-founder of the Ha’penny Film Club, her early 16mm shorts were formally experimental and influenced by fine art practices. Snakes and Ladders (1997), her debut feature, was one of the first Irish films directed by a woman about contemporary women’s lives, and she continued to position women squarely on screen with her ground-breaking documentary series Hoodwinked: Irish Women Since the 1920s.
Sophie Fiennes Sophie Fiennes is a film director whose feature documentaries for theatrical exhibiton include her collaborations with the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema (2006), and The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology (2012), her portrait of German artist Anselm Keifer, Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow (2010), and her film Grace Jones; Bloodlight and Bami (2017), an observational odyssey into the world of the iconic singer and performer. More recently, T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, (2022) is Sophie Fiennes’ translation from stage to screen of her brother Ralph Fiennes’s performance and staging of the modern epic poem. This was commissioned by BBC and released theatrically by Kino Lorber, in the USA in 2023. Fiennes’ films have received international distribution and screened in festivals including Cannes official selection, Sundance, Toronto International Film Festival, International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, Telluride, Rotterdam, Karlovy Vary to name a few. She was awarded a NESTA fellowship in 2001, to develop her innovative approach to film and won the Arte France Cinema Award in 2008 at Roaerdam’s Cinemart. Fiennes works as director, camera operator, editor and producer on Acting.
Jackie Fox Jackie Fox is an Irish anti-cyberbullying campaigner whose tireless advocacy led to the enactment of Ireland’s Coco’s Law (officially the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act 2020). She campaigned following the tragic death by suicide of her 21-year-old daughter, Nicole “Coco” Fox, in 2018 after enduring severe physical and online abuse.
Maria Walsh MEP Maria Walsh is Member of the European Parliament representing Ireland’s Midlands–North-West constituency. Elected in 2019 and re-elected in 2024, she champions mental health awareness, LGBTQ+ equality, and youth empowerment.