The 2023 Rathmullan Film Festival Challenge

New filmmakers rise to the challenge and create films inspired by the Archive

Northern Ireland Screen has partnered with Rathmullan Film Festival since 2023. The partnership with the Digital Film Archive has two main areas: The screening of beautiful films in interesting venues and with local collaborators and the Film Challenge in which new filmmakers rummage in the archive and create their own unique takes on the stories it tells.

Established in 2017 and launched in 2018, the Rathmullan Film Festival is a volunteer-led, not-for-profit, participatory festival located in the seaside village of Rathmullan, Co. Donegal. The Festival screens popular films but is also a leading organisation in the development of film-making skills in the Donegal area. The participatory aspect of the Festival encourages people of all ages and skills to learn about the world of cinema and to be a real part of it, fostering talent and creating a legacy in the participants, many of whom have continued to make films.

This collection holds the films created locally within the Film Challenge project in 2023. In this first year, the filmmakers were asked to reuse the archive creatively but to also incorporate their own film if they wanted to. Thanks to our partners at Póca Productions who ran online classes in storytelling, film creation and editing for the group.  

The winning film was .The Race for Stumpy's Gold by Fergus Friel. The judges were very impressed by Fergus's clever use of the archives to create a completely new story, his inventive editing and use of the archive film to imbue the short with real atmosphere.