EQUALITY IS NORMAL

Beyond Diversity and Towards True Equity

13:00-14:00

(Zoom)

Screenwriters are (amongst other things) cultural creators. The power to create culture is incredibly valuable. Our stories shape us as we shape them. By ensuring that our culture is representative, we make it richer - we make it a better mirror with which to see ourselves. We learn to know ourselves better.

The screen industry has been working hard to promote diversity in recent years. It’s a move which is both long overdue and extremely welcome.

But where can we go from here? How do we make diversity unremarkable? How do we make it so common it only looks strange when it is absent? How do we change the culture so that a monocultural room looks bizarre, outdated and weird?

Because diversity is normal. Walk out your door and you will see that. All that is being asked is that the screen industry is more or less representative of the wider society.

We must open the door wide. Not out of fairness (although their are important arguments here). But for the sake of story.

What amazing voices are going unheard because we are not listening to broad sections of society. Let’s make screenwriting a profession that is hungry for new distinctive voices with new tales to tell. Becuase that is what will make our screen stories glow.

Panelists:

Rehan Ali

Mary McDonagh

Esosa Ighodaro

Grainne Bennett

Katie McNiece

Moderated by Jody O’Neill

RAISING THE STAKES

How Screenwriters with Children Manage the Juggle

18:30-19:30

(Zoom)

Screeenwriting is a precarious profession at the best of times with long lean periods and then intense times when everything must be dropped to focus on the work. How do screenwriters with kids manage it all?

This panel will discuss the highs and lows of it all and share some tips on how sanity and success can be achieved (or not)!

Panelists:

Laura Canavan

Carol Walsh

Clare Monnelly

Niamh O’Connor

Ben Conway

Mark O’Connor

Daniel Hegarty

Moderated by: Gavin Ryan

BREAKING THROUGH INTERNATIONALLY

Screenwriters Looking to Take Over The World

(Event Sponsored by Aicearra Screenwriting Management)

19.30 - 20.30 

(Zoom)

It has become clear that the Ireland is a place to write from - rather than a market for scripts. If Ireland was ever in a position to support the careers of all of its screenwriters, it certainly isn’t today.

But there is a thriving international script market and enough work and opportunities for everyone willing to go after it. And in the age of the internet, it may be possible to do it without having to emigrate.

Aicearra is a new screenwritng management company that has taken on a slate of ambitious and talented screenwriters with the aim of doing just that. Breaking through internationally.

Meet the Aicearra founders, Gavin Ryan & Ronika Merl - two screenwriters who believe that screenwriting should be a financially stable and rewarding career for talented, hard-working writers who choose to stay.

Gavin & Ronika are joined by as many of their screenwriters as they can press gang onto the panel.

Find out more about Aicearra here

www.aicearra.com

WHO WROTE THIS SH*T?

Actors Discuss What They Look for in Good Dialogue

13:00-14:00

(Zoom)

Despite the fact that all our lines are destined to be read by actors, we often forget to seek their insight when we write dialogue. This event is an attempt to redress this oversight.

In this panel discussion, actors discuss great scripts, terrible scripts and everything in between. They give some tips on what kind of dialogue will make an actor love you and what kind of scripts will make an actor fight to be involved in your project.

If you want to avoid writing wooden, unspeakable dialogue, don’t miss this event.

YOUNG AT HEART

Writing for Children’s Animation

18:30-19:30

(Zoom)

Ireland’s children’s animation industry is booming, competing with the best anywhere in the world.

From Oscar nominated feature films to TV series appearing on international broadcasters and streamers, Irish animation has certainly conquered the world and that trajectory doesn’t seem anywhere near slowing down.

How can screenwriters break into this vibrant and growing industry?

The panel will discuss opportunities for screenwriters and some tips on the do’s and don’ts for aspiring animation writers from the people who know the industry best.  

Panelists

Shannon George (Kody Kapow)

Kristina Yee (Ollie)

Richie Conroy (Zig & Zag)

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

How to Succeed Writing for the Games Industry

19.30 - 20.30 

(Zoom)

“In the last decade, the gaming industry has been smashing Hollywood’s earnings out of the park! Just in 2021, the Global “Games Market” had a whopping $180BN in revenue. In fact, Gaming is bigger than Hollywood and the music industry combined.” (Things Have Changed*)

Many screenwriting programmes are now offering modules in branching narratives to give their students the opportunity to make a career in this growing industry.

This panel will discuss the production requirements for the games industry that impact on the games writer and how to adapt your writing to fit this fast growing industry.

The panelists are leading games experts who have their fingers on the pulse of the interantional games market.

*https://www.thc-pod.com/episode/the-gaming-industry-is-now-bigger-than-movies-and-music-combined

Panelists:

Aoife Gleeson: INT/NIGHT

Eric Rivers: Bellular Studios.

Barry Keating Freelance

Aoife O’Friel Ubisoft

Moderated by: Eoghain Meakin (Games Writer/Lecturer) 

REPRESENTATION MATTERS

Agents On What They Look For In A Screenwriter

13:00-14:00

(Zoom)

Getting an agent is an important step in a screenwriters career. But how to find any agent, never mind the one who is right for you?

Join our panel of screenwriting agents to discuss what they look for in a writer, how they like to be produced and what they suggest a screenwriter can do to push their careers forward.

Panelists

Jean Kitson (Kitson Press)

Jessica Jones (Independent Talent)

Gavin Ryan (Aicearra)

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS

An Evening With The Writers Guild of Ireland

19:30-20:30

(Zoom)

The DISF loves the the Writers Guild of Ireland. The guild has done so much for Irish-based screenwriters and continues to fight for fair treatment of writers in an industry that undervalues us.

So you have a producer interested in your work. That’s great news. But what do you do when you are offered your first contract? Do you accept it? Do you negotiate? How much is fair? What about ownership of the work?

What if they ask for you to work but don’t mention a contract? How much should you do before you start talking about money? All these questions and more arise as soon as a screenwriter makes her first forays into the industry.

In Ireland, many professional screenwriters operate without an agent. Who do they go to with concerns about contracts, fees, ownership?

The Writers Guild of Ireland join us to discuss screenwriters rights and how things are changing both in Ireland and internationally and what your guild is doing to help ensure writers are fairly treated (and fairly paid) for the invaluable and foundational work they perform in the screen industry.

Panelists:

David Kavanagh (FSE Executive)
Jennifer Davidson (WGI Chair)

Hugh Farley (WGI Director)

To find out more about your guild, you can check out their website here: script.ie

IS THERE A DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE?

Script Doctors On The Main Ailments of Troubled Screenplays

11:00 -12:00

(Zoom)

If you’ve ever written a script, then you know what it is to walk into the woods and lose your way. No matter how well you outline, your story veers, meanders and often gets lost entirely.

In this panel we talk with the people you go to when your script needs the kind of help you can’t seem to give it. Because you are too close to it. You are draft blind.

Here are the people who can understand what you are trying to acheive and can help you unlock a story and give it fresh momentum.

Find out what the typical problems are with screenplays and how they can be fixed. And find out how you might turn your love of story and structure into a career helping other writers midwive their scripts into shape.

Panelists:

Rachel O Flanagan Website

Eilish Kent Website

Katie Murphy Website

WHEN THE DREAM COMES TRUE

I Made My Series, Now What?

18.30-19.30

(Zoom)

You write your pilot, your bible, your episode outlines and a few paragraphs on seasons 2 and 3 and suddenly you are greenlit.

This is the dream for most TV writers, but what happens next? The DISF speaks to screenwriters who have had their show produced and talk about what changed and what they learned.

If you are a writer who is hoping to see your ideas broadcast to the world one day, this is a panel you will not want to miss.

Panelists:

Mark O’Connor (Darklands)

Catherine Maher (The South Westerlies)

Ken Harmon (Legend)

Tadhg Hickey. (The School)

Moderated by Miriam Devitt

LAST PARTY ON THE LEFT

DISF Saturday Social

Supported by The Wicklow Wolf Brewing Company and Griffith College.

The Wicklow Wolf Brewing Company have kindly provided the party with some Elevation Pale Ale and Moonlight Non-Alcoholic.

We’ll be getting together in Griffith College for a bit of a knees-up and chinwag and even a cheeky boogie.

Networking is banned. This is pure craic.

Tickets booked on the link below include a complementary drink at the bar.

€5 on the door

Woop!

Come Party With Us - Book Now Before All The Tickets Are Gone!

IS IT TOO EARLY FOR WINE?

How To Write Through A World of Distractions - With Ken Harmon & Guests

18:30-19:30

(Zoom)

Getting past the little voice, the bad reviews, the endless applications, cranky printers, the pitches, the zooms… and the everything fecking else of it all – why is this never a good time to do some writing?

 A panel talk about dossing, routine domestic emergencies, and the serious question: what is my writing doing during all this?

Panelists:

Jennifer Davidson

Gavin Lennon

Amanda Verlaque

Ronika Merl

Gavin Ryan

Carol Walsh

Moderated by Ken Harmon

In-Conversation with Colm Baireád. (TBC)

We were genuinely moved by this absurdly beautiful film. I went on my own to watch it - towards the end, my face was wet with unnoticed tears. I had been transformed by it. So much so it has me reaching for my John O’Donoghue:

“When we expereince the beautiful, there is a sense of homecoming […] For a while the strains and struggle and endurance are relieved and our frailty is illuminated by a different light in which we come to glimpse behind the shudder of appearances the sure form of things. In the experience of beauty we awaken and surrender in the same act. […] Without any of the usual calculation, we can slip into the beautiful with the same ease as we slip into the seemless embrace of water; something ancient within us already trusts that this embrace will hold us.”

Divine Beauty: The Invisible Embrace (2003) Bantam.

In this closing event, Seán T. O’Meallaigh is in conversation with Colm Baireád, the screenwriter and director of this year’s breakthrough Oscar hopeful, An Cailín Ciúin. A breathtaking adaptation of Claire Keegan’s Foster.

The converstion will slip between Irish and English and will be accessible to all.