Biography
Anna Rodgers is multi IFTA and Radharc award winning director and producer with over 27 years experience. Her films have travelled to 100+ film festivals around the world, won international awards, been released in cinema, and screened on channels including RTE, YLE, ZDF, TV4 Sweden, Deutsche Welle and RTVE Spain. Her recent feature, How to Tell a Secret, a hybrid theatre documentary film about HIV (made in collaboration with Shaun Dunne as part of the Arts Council Reel Arts) is her third feature and was released by Netflix. Her short film Two Mothers won the Netflix Documentary Talent Award, Best Documentary at Fastnet and a Radharc award in 2024. Anna is the writer and director of the RTE/ Screen Ireland ‘Storyland’ drama short film ‘Grace’ which had its international premiere at the 50th Cleveland International Film Festival and will screen at Fastnet 2026. It won Best Short Film at the Royal Television Society Award 2026. Anna is currently producing The Last Balkan Cowboy for Screen Ireland, RTE and Coimisún na Meán. She just completed the 2026 Storyhouse Lab and has two features in development with Screen Ireland as producer.
Areas of Expertise for Mentoring
- Pitching – We’ve won pitches at Docs Ireland, Storyland RTÉ, Catalyst Documentary Bursary and Netflix Documentary Talent Award and I can share tips and tricks on how to hone your project for pitching to funds.Writing and developing documentary treatments and funding applications.
- Budgeting documentary – I’ve been across budgets big and small and can help you to budget appropriately for your idea.
- Producing documentary – archive and music clearance, ethics and informed consent, scheduling, post production, and self-distribution.
- Documentary film festival strategy.
- Developing and Directing a television documentary for broadcast.
- Preparing for your first drama short - transferring from documentary to drama as a director