The Producers

John Kelleher - Producer

A veteran of the film and television industry in Ireland and internationally, John has produced many award-winning feature films and tv series, including Eat the Peach (which he co-wrote) and the seven-hour series, Strumpet City. He has also produced many documentary series, including the 12-hour BBC/RTE series, ‘Ireland, A Television History’ and feature documentaries, including ‘The Artist and the Wall of Death’, which was premiered at this year’s Galway Film Fleadh and Charlie Bird: Loud and Clear, which was broadcast in June on RTE1.

He has been Controller of Television Programmes at RTE1, Managing Director of The Sunday Tribune, Director of the Irish Film Classification Office (formerly the Film Censor’s Office) and he was a founder shareholder of the Windmill Lane consortium which won the TV3 franchise in 1989.

He established the leading Irish independent film and television company, John Kelleher Media in 2011, which has produced, among others, Wonder House, A Disconnected Rhythm, The Guarantee and The Bailout. He is a director of Wildcard Distribution and has been a director of Ardmore Studios, Troy Studios and Creative Europe.

He is currently Festival Director of the Fastnet Film Festival and is a regular broadcaster on The Hard Shoulder programme on Newstalk.

Grant Keir - Producer

Grant Keir owns, and produces with, production company Faction North. He develops and produces feature films, feature documentaries, television and cross platform projects with a range of national and international partners. Grant teaches Pitch Training to his fellow industry producers, funded by organisations such as Creative England and ScreenSkills. He was Head of Studies on the leading international Rough-Cut-to-Industry-Launch Training Programme, Dok Incubator, 2018-2020. Grant’s recent credits include the TV documentary ‘Dreaming without Sleeping’ for BBC Scotland and the feature documentary ‘Suzi Q’ (Dir Liam Firmager - Melbourne Film Festival 2019). The short drama, ‘Lift Share’, by writer / director, Virginia Heath, was backed by the Scottish Film Talent Network (SFTN), premiered at Edinburgh International Film Festival 2018, screened at Underwire Film Festival in London in November 2018 and won Best Short at the Annual CPH Film Festival 2019. Grant produced the short documentaries ‘Three Chords and the Truth’, by Virginia Heath (2019) and ‘Silent Laughs’, which Premiered at EIFF 2016 and continues to screen at festivals around the world as part of the Scottish Documentary Institute’s Bridging the Gap series. Feature Film productions at his Edinburgh-based production company, Faction North, include a film that has already become a Scottish Classic: ‘From Scotland with Love’, (2014).

Maurice O’Brien - Director

Maurice has been directing as well as producing critically-acclaimed, award-winning films for
15 years. His work has screened at film festivals around the world and as well as working with the
BBC for over a decade he has made films for Screen Ireland, Guardian Documentaries, RTE,
Screen Scotland, and Channel 4/Discovery.

O'Brien is also one of the creative minds behind Dazzled By Daylight, The Artist and the Wall of Death, Hey Ronnie Reagan and Buffalo Dreams