Neasa Ní Chianáin trained at the National College of Art &
Design in Dublin, and worked as a freelance Art Director on
Irish feature film and television projects, such as ‘All Soul’s
Day’, Angela’s Ashes’, ‘A Love Divided’ and the BBC series,
‘Rebel Heart’.
Neasa started directing documentaries in 2001 with ‘No Man’s Land’, a critically acclaimed film about the asylum process in Ireland. She has directed television docs, short docs and three feature documentaries including the award-winning Irish Film Board funded feature length observational documentary, ‘Frank Ned & Busy Lizzie’, which won Best Feature Documentary at The Celtic Film Festival 2004, and was sold to broadcasters around the world.
Her next film, ‘Fairytale of Kathmandu’ world premiered at IDFA 2007, in the Silver Wolf Competition. It was subsequently invited to 25 more international Festivals including Seattle (North American Premiere), Edinburgh (UK premiere) DocAviv, Durban, New York and San Francisco GLBT Festival, and won 3 international awards.
After this, she directed ‘The Stranger’, which premiered in the prestigious Semaine de la Critique Competition in Locarno Film Festival in August 2014.
Her latest film, ‘In Loco Parentis’, will have its World Premiere in the Feature Documentary Competition at IDFA in November 2016.
David Rane is a BAFTA-winning producer and director, who over the last 20 years has produced many award-winning documentary films for national and international broadcasters, a number of animated films, and a number of short fiction films. His company, Soilsiú Films, have had their work screened in France, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Taiwan, Finland, the United States, New Zealand and more. Soilsiú Films received EU MEDIA Programme Single Project funding in 2002 and 2010, and Slate funding support in 2005 and Creative Europe Development funding in 2012 and 2014.
David was a graduate of the M.A. Film and Television course at the University of London (Goldsmiths College) in 1993. He was on the Executive Committee of Screen Producers Ireland (the Irish Producers’ representative body) for four years, and has taught film making at both the University of London and the Dublin Institute of Technology. He is a graduate of EAVE European Producers Programme 1999, and EURODOC 2014.
David is also the founder and festival director of the Guth Gafa International Documentary Film Festival, which held its 10th edition in August 2016.