Ten short films from emerging Irish filmmakers selected for Screen Ireland’s Focus Shorts 2025
Posted: 17th June 2025
Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland is delighted to announce the 10 successful projects for the 2025 round of Focus Shorts, Screen Ireland’s flagship short film scheme. Ten teams of emerging directors, screenwriters and producers have been awarded €70,000 per project to produce a live-action short film.
From haunted air fryers to dark secrets, this year’s Focus Shorts range in genre from horror to comedy to contemporary emotive drama. The selection process was a highly competitive one, with 112 applications received for the scheme. Members of the selection committee comprised representatives from the international industry, including festival programmers and sales & distribution experts.
Focus Shorts is a short film production scheme that highlights strong and original storytelling, visual flair, and production values appropriate to the big screen.
Emma Scott, Head of Audiences at Screen Ireland, said:
“We are delighted to unveil the successful projects for the 2025 edition of Focus Shorts, and Screen Ireland would like to extend a huge congratulations to the ten teams selected.
The selection process for Focus Shorts is incredibly competitive, due to the impressively high standard of applications received year on year. From horror to comedy, this year’s line-up showcases a wave of new and exciting voices ready to tell stories made for the big screen. We can’t wait for audiences to connect with these projects at Irish film festivals and beyond next year.
The ten successful Focus Shorts projects for 2025 are:
Show Pony
Written by Megan Haly and Shannon Haly, directed by Shannon Haly, and produced by Emily Power.
Mid-drag performance at a queer bar in Cork, Claire is shocked to see her traditional Catholic Nana in the crowd. A conversation slowly unfolds between them backstage, where they discover that they have a lot more in common than either of them ever imagined.
A Knock at Your Door
Written and directed by Alan Hopkins, and produced by Husni Hafid.
A young couple shelters an injured teen, but as fear and a violent mob close in, they must face their own prejudices & hard truths about their relationship and values.
The Kevin Intervention
Written by Fiona Tuohy, directed by Aideen McCarthy, and produced by Margaret Milner Schmueck.
When a group of friends decide to break up with the world’s most annoying man, “bestie” Kevin, they start to have second thoughts when Kevin reveals some startling news.
Lucy’s Boyfriend
Written by Jonathan C. Creasy, directed by Zoë Gibney, and produced by Neil Guerin and Lisa Kelly. Adapted from a short story by Anne Enright.
A chance encounter in a Dublin yoga class forces a divorced mother into a darkly comic exploration of her teenage past.
Mom Friends
Written by Mairead Kiernan, directed by John Morton, and produced by Aoibhín Murphy.
A struggling new mother is lured into a too-perfect Mum group that offers her encouragement and creativity—until she discovers their bloody secret and has to decide whether to join their ranks or stay with her sabotaging husband.
The Colonist
Written by Dee Roycroft, directed by Jason Byrne and Kevin Treacy, and produced by Eoghan McKenna.
In a near-future world, a doctor returns home to find a determined visitor has claimed her kitchen. Their standoff becomes a lesson in coexistence, empathy and the small miracles of hope.
Butterfly
Written by Kate Gilmore and Fionnuala Gygax, directed by Natasha Waugh, and produced by Leeona Duff.
When the justice system fails them, two ex-national swimmers take a reckless road trip across Ireland to confront their past.
Linger
Written by Bobby Moloney, directed by Jaro Waldeck, and produced by Maria O'Neill and Gerard Mckenzie.
When a medical breakthrough offers Eve the choice to revive her dying husband for seven days, will the borrowed time be worthwhile, even if it kills him in the end?
Fried
Written by Mary Kirwan, directed by Zoë Brennan-Whitmore, and produced by Fiona Dwyer.
When a recent college graduate unwittingly buys a cursed air fryer, it triggers a dark, obsessive hunger that threatens her sanity.
Listen
Written and directed by Tracy Martin and produced by Jo Halpin.
A mother's drive home turns into a nightmare when her husband begs her to keep a terrible secret.
About Focus Shorts
Focus Shorts is Screen Ireland’s flagship short film scheme for the making of live-action, fiction films that act as a proving-ground for Irish creative talents aspiring to write, direct and produce films for the cinema. It offers an opportunity for producers, directors and writers to work in a professional environment that will bring their experience up to a higher level and can be seen as a stepping stone for more ambitious projects.
Since its establishment, short films produced under the scheme have seen international success at the Tribeca Film Festival, the BFI London Film Festival and the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival, with last year’s Focus Short film Room Taken making the highly competitive longlist of 15 films for the 97th Academy Awards. The most recently produced slate of Focus Shorts will receive their World Premiere at the 2025 Galway Film Fleadh next month.
Short films from previous rounds can be watched on Screen Ireland’s Shorts Player.