Round 23: Empowerment Through Film
Hosted by: Jack Phelan
September 27th 2025​
Supported by Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland through the Skills Development Events Funding Scheme
Sinéad O'Riordan
Sinéad is an award-winning Irish actress, producer, and founder of ORion Productions. She holds an Honours Degree in Electronic Engineering, an Associate Recital Diploma from LAMDA, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Advanced Producing with Screen Ireland. She also serves as PRO in the newly formed Screen Cork organisation.
In the new Irish feature Swing Bout, she plays a scheming boxing coach,her first feature lead, while also serving as producer. The role earned her a Discovery Award nomination at the Dublin International Film Festival (DIFF) 2024. Swing Bout premiered at DIFF in February 2024, won Best Picture at the Paladino d’Oro Sports Film Festival, and enjoyed a four-week independent cinema run in Ireland, drawing rave reviews from The Guardian and The Irish Examiner. It is now streaming on Apple TV, Prime Video, and YouTube across Ireland and the UK.
Most recently, she starred in the short film The Forest Dreams of the Past (Fiona Aryan/writer/director). Other notable credits include the multi-award-winning The Dry (Element Pictures), The Curers (BFI Network & Northern Ireland Screen), MÍR (Madra Mór Productions), Conversations with My Dead Father (Screen Ireland), Sucking Diesel (Amazon Prime), Killers Within, and Dead Along the Way (Amazon Prime).
As a producer, Sinéad co-produced the Puttnam Award-winning short Wireless, which screened at Oscar- and BAFTA-qualifying festivals and is currently featured on Aer Lingus inflight entertainment. She also produced the Screen Ireland–funded Conversations with My Dead Father, which won Best in Cork at the Fastnet Film Festival 2022.
Beyond her own films, Sinéad has worked as an EPK Producer on major Netflix and Apple TV projects, including Lift (Kevin Hart) and Swagger (O’Shea Jackson Jr.), among others.
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Will Knott
Communication has been a driving force for Will in all his endeavours, from ensuring scientific concepts are understood by a general audience to fine-tune emotional performances by actors. He is a technical lead on Signal Flair, a motion capture based sign language translation project, which is about ensuring that the performances of the actors transmit the emotion and subject of the scene.
He's had a portfolio career in the arts, education and sciences. From programming optimization routines for telecommunications networks to tether production and creation to CoderDojo and teaching EU Commissioners how to program hardware systems. He can assure you, that it's easier to teach eight year olds than politicians.
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Matthew Murphy
Matthew Murphy is a Filmmaker, Actor, and Disability Advocate. He works closely with Susiha Inclusive Arts and Horizons in Cork.
Focusing on empowering adults and children with intellectual and physical disabilities with their own artistic projects, along with their own goals.
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