The 2024 Rathmullan Film Festival Challenge

New filmmakers rise to the challenge and create films inspired by the Digital Film 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 its second year of 2024. Entiled, "What's the Story?" the challenge this year was that the amatuer filmmakers use archive film supplied by the Digital Film Archive to create completely new films. Thanks to our partners at Póca Productions who ran online classes in storytelling, film creation and editing for the group.  

The standard of filmmaking was incredibly high and the winning film in 2024 was Mrs Campbell & Other Amazing People by Sinéad Gallagher. The judges loved Sinéad's weaving together of the stories of disparate women and that she created an original song to accompany the film..