Full programme announced for 17th OFFline Film Festival
The full programme has been announced for the 17th OFFline Film Festival, which returns to Offaly from October 7 to October 11 with five days of feature films, documentaries, short films, workshops, industry events and special screenings.
The festival will bring international and Irish cinema to venues across the county, while also providing opportunities for emerging filmmakers, young people and audiences to engage with the film industry.
Festival Director Emma Hanley said the festival was about the shared experience of watching cinema together.
“There’s a unique kind of magic that fills the room when the lights go down, the chit-chat fades and a story begins to unfold on the big screen,” she said.
“It’s that collective sense of wonder, curiosity and connection that makes bringing you this year’s OFFline Film Festival such a pleasure.”
This year’s programme combines the festival’s core selection of feature films, documentaries and competition shorts with several new additions, including an experimental shorts programme, an online shorts programme and a dedicated Animation Day in Tullamore, in partnership with the National Talent Academy for Animation.
Popular festival events including Made in Midlands and Fright Night will also return.
The festival opens on October 7 with The Lost Children of Tuam, which explores amateur historian Catherine Corless’s discovery of evidence relating to the former Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Co Galway.
The 81-minute film screens at Birr Theatre & Arts Centre at 8pm. Admission is €12 and the film is rated 12A. Opening Night drinks will follow at Craughwell’s at 9.30pm.
The educational programme gets underway the same day with Irish-language film Báite, which will screen at Birr Theatre & Arts Centre on October 7 at 10am and at Esker Arts on October 8 at 11am.
The 94-minute film is rated 12+. Educational screenings cost €5 per student, with teachers admitted free.
A Careers in Film industry panel will also take place at Birr Theatre & Arts Centre on October 7 from 12.30pm to 2pm.
The free event is aimed at secondary school students considering a future in film, film students hoping to break into the industry and anyone interested in what happens behind the camera. Booking is required.
On October 8, students will have the opportunity to see the German classic Run Lola Run at Birr Theatre & Arts Centre at 1pm, while French drama Enzo will be screened at both Birr and Esker Arts.
Enzo follows 16-year-old Enzo, who challenges his bourgeois family's expectations by beginning a masonry apprenticeship. His experiences on construction sites, and his relationship with a Ukrainian colleague, open up new possibilities for his future. The film will screen at Birr Theatre & Arts Centre at 10am and at Esker Arts at 1.35pm. It is rated 15A.
Also on October 8, Belgian drama Close, directed by Lukas Dhont, will screen at Esker Arts at 7pm.
The 2022 film follows 13-year-old best friends Rémi and Léo, whose intense friendship comes under pressure when they begin secondary school and their closeness is questioned by their peers. Admission is €12 and the film is rated 12A.
Irish documentary Celtic Utopia will screen at Birr Theatre & Arts Centre at 8pm that evening. The 2025 documentary examines a new generation of Irish artists and their relationship with folk music and Ireland’s colonial history. Admission is €12 and the film is rated PG.
On October 9, primary school pupils will get the chance to see the 2001 animated classic Shrek at Birr Theatre & Arts Centre at 10am.
The festival’s FRESH 48: The OFFline 48-Hour Filmmaking Challenge will also get underway, in partnership with Fresh International Film Festival.
The challenge is open to young people aged 13 to 18, who will work in teams with filmmaker mentors to take a film from its first idea to a finished production in just 48 hours.
Registration takes place at John’s Hall on Friday, with activities continuing at The Spot Youth Café over the weekend. The challenge is free, but advance registration is required.
Later that evening, Fright Night returns to Ballincard House. The 18+ event begins at 7.45pm, with the screening starting at 8.30pm. A bus will depart Emmet Square in Birr at 7.45pm. The €25 ticket includes transportation, a drink on arrival, the films and booking fees.
A new Best Horror Short award will be introduced this year, with the winner chosen by the audience. The winning short will subsequently be screened at Cultplex, an independent cinema in Manchester, as part of its STAB Horror Season during October.
The Fright Night line-up includes Nightcap, directed by Jack Hartley; Irish Son, directed by Tolu Ogunware; I Woke Up Like This, directed by Jamie Delany; ’Til Death Do U Part, directed by Adam Collins; Wire, directed by Michael P. Spencer; A Woman Eats A Kebab Alone on a Bench, directed by Giovana Chiconelli; Call Centre Shiva, directed by Dylan Delaney; To A Flame, directed by Ro Martin; Can You Hear Me?, directed by Ellius Grace; and Celestial Intersect: The Haden House Haunting, directed by Ben Monk.
Another highlight on October 9 is the screening of Super Nature at Birr Theatre & Arts Centre at 8pm. The UK documentary, filmed exclusively on Super 8, offers a distinctive look at the natural world. Admission is €12 and the film is rated PG.
A panel discussion will follow, focusing on protecting the environment through art and conservation. Photographer Paul Moore, visual artist Maria McSweeney and Offaly Biodiversity Officer Ricky Whelan will discuss how visual storytelling can document nature, raise awareness and inspire action to protect local ecosystems.
The Live Action Competition Shorts programme will take place at Birr Theatre & Arts Centre on October 10 at noon. The two-hour programme, which is rated 12+, costs €10 and has been selected from what organisers describe as a record-breaking wave of submissions from 38 countries.
The selected films are CHARITY!, directed by Stephen T Lally; Moloch, directed by Meghan O’Shaughnessy; Astro, directed by Tim Ewalts; This Conversation Has Been Removed, directed by Andrew Nolan; Dragon’s Teeth, directed by Lennart Soberon; Ya Hanouni, directed by Lyna Tadount and Sofian Chouaib; ÉIST, directed by Róisín Kearney; I Could Have Been A Dancer, directed by Michelle Lucy; and STUCK, directed by Will Peppercorn.
The films represent productions from Ireland, the UK, Northern Ireland, Belgium and France.
Later that afternoon, Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed 1976 film Taxi Driver will screen at Birr Theatre & Arts Centre at 4pm. The 114-minute film, starring Robert De Niro and Jodie Foster, is rated 18 and admission is €12.
The film received four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor for De Niro, Best Supporting Actress for Foster and Best Original Score for Bernard Herrmann.
The festival will then head to Kinnitty for a special 10th anniversary screening of Oasis: Supersonic. The 2016 documentary tells the story of Oasis through the words of the band members themselves and charts the rise of the iconic Manchester group.
The screening takes place at Kinnitty Community Centre at 7pm on October 10. Admission is €15 and the film is rated 15A. Special guest Tony McCarroll will attend the screening, providing an opportunity for audiences to hear from one of Oasis's original members.
An Online Shorts Programme will also take place on October 10 at 8pm. Admission is free and the programme is rated 12+.
The festival continues on October 11 with Desire Lines, aemi’s 2026 touring programme of artist and experimental film.
The annual touring programme brings together a range of voices from Irish and international contemporary practice and takes its title from the term used in landscape architecture to describe unofficial paths created when people deviate from designated routes.
The programme features Morning Circle, Morgenkreis by Basma al-Sharif, Verdigris by Chloe Brenan, as above, so below and Body Diagrams by Olivia Normile, Speech For A Melting Statue by Collectif Faire Part, and Parish by Eóin Heaney.
The programme includes work from Canada, the UAE, Ireland, Belgium and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Desire Lines screens at Birr Theatre & Arts Centre at noon. Admission is €10 and the programme is rated 12+.
At 2pm, the Oscar-qualifying short Mary is Missing will screen at Birr Theatre & Arts Centre.
The film follows care worker Mary, who vanishes without a trace. Detective Foley arrives at the Yellow Tree Day Service and begins an investigation as increasingly confusing eyewitness reports raise questions about truth, fiction and who can be believed. The screening is rated 12+ and admission is €10. A discussion will accompany the screening.
Local filmmaking will take centre stage that evening with the return of Made in Midlands at Birr Theatre & Arts Centre at 7pm. The €10 screening, rated 12+, will be followed by a Q&A with local filmmakers.
The programme includes The Bog Monster, which follows a man living in isolation as he spends his days digging holes and searching the bog until an unexpected discovery begins to fracture the world around him.
The Rambling House, created by Hazel Greene and Christor with Birr Men Together, explores the tradition of the Irish rambling house through a short visual project.
Bigfoot Lover, written and directed by Megan Murphy, follows a heartbroken and lonely woman struggling to escape destructive patterns in her love life before she meets Bigfoot.
Field Queens, written and directed by Áine Ryan and produced by David Butler, centres on two 15-year-old girls who clean a minibus following a drunken mishap. Their friendship is unexpectedly tested after they encounter the bus driver’s wife.
Reunion, written and directed by Maura Foley and produced by Sophie Lynch, follows Aoife and Jen as they return to their hometown for a reunion and reflect on love, loss and life.
A dedicated Animation Day in Tullamore, organised in partnership with the National Talent Academy for Animation, will add another strand to the festival programme, while a series of workshops will take place throughout the festival.
Other events include the NTA Crew East Set Etiquette Course and the Midlands Filmmaking Panel and Networking Event, in partnership with Film Offaly. Trad Thursday will take place at Kelly’s Bar from 8pm.
The festival will conclude with its awards nights, bringing the programme of screenings, workshops and events to a close.
Festival Director Emma Hanley thanked the festival committee, funders, sponsors, patrons, partners, facilitators, volunteers and filmmakers involved in bringing the event together.
“Most importantly, thank you to our audiences for showing up and supporting independent cinema,” she said.
The 17th OFFline Film Festival will run from October 7 to 11, bringing international, national and local filmmaking to venues throughout Offaly.
More information, including the complete programme, screening times, venues and booking details, is available at: https://www.offlinefilmfestival.com/programme