50 Cork schools to feature in First Cut Youth Film Festival in Youghal

The 17th annual First Cut Youth Film Festival will take place in East Cork next month, featuring works from 50 Leeside schools.

The six-day event, dedicated to screening the work of young filmmakers in Ireland, will take place in Youghal, and will see more than 200 short films showcased, providing a platform to creators aged between 12 and 25 years old.

Participants will also be given the opportunity to take part in workshops, and engage with industry professionals over the course of the festival.

As part of the festival’s Schools Open Call Programme, dozens of schools from across the country will screen short films of all genres, 50 of which are based in Cork.

Participating schools from Cork will screen films during the festival as part of the Cork Young Filmmakers Programme and special First Cut animation and Irish language filmmaking initiatives.

Over the last few months, 19 schools and 500 students in Youghal and Midleton have taken part in Animania!, a series of animation workshops facilitated by artists Belinda Walsh, Pádraig Fagan, Eimhin McNamara and Gareth Lyons.

As a result of these workshops, participating students created several new short animated films, which will all be screened at the event in March.

This year’s festival will also see the return of Athrú Amháin!/One Change!, First Cut’s Irish-language environmental filmmaking competition, supported by the Micheál O'Loinsigh Memorial Award, and the Youth Music Video Competition, which pairs emerging filmmakers with Irish music acts to make music videos.

The First Cut Youth Film Festival receives annual core funding from the Arts Council and Cork County Council’s Arts Office, and is supported by Cork Education and Training Board, Youghal Union, Cork Film Centre and local business sponsorship.

A full programme of events for the festival, which is set to take place from March 2 to March 7, will be available soon via the First Cut Youth Film Festival website.

For more information on the First Cut Youth Film Festival, visit firstcutfilmfestival.com.