We are the voice of independent producers in Ireland.

As CEO of the festival, she worked closely with the Department of Tourism, Arts, Culture, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media and government agencies to create an award-winning, world-class festival which is recognised as strategically important to the national agenda. Susan has built a high-level network focused on the promotion of Ireland and its creative industries nationally and worldwide. Susan is a graduate of Trinity College and DIT with a BSc in Marketing & International Business. Susan is Chair of the British Irish Chamber Culture, Art, Sport & Tourism committee, and a member of the steering committee for the Screen Ireland supported National Talent Academy Film, an initiative for developing and driving opportunities for diverse and regional screen talent in film and television on a national level.

Anthony was formerly Parliamentary Assistant to Dominic Hannigan T.D. for six years and has a Masters in Political Communications and Public Affairs and a B.A. in English, Media and Cultural Studies. He is currently on the Board of the European Producers Association CEPI and is on the BelongTo Board advocacy sub-Committee.

Laura has over 12 years of experience in the areas of corporate services, communications, membership, executive support and project management. Laura holds BA in Journalism and Visual Media and has gained professional diplomas in Digital Media Marketing and Bookkeeping.

Prior to that, Orlaith worked in the public sector as a civil servant in the Department of Finance and in Publicjobs.ie. Orlaith works for SPI while also working as a freelance PR consultant. Orlaith is also the voluntary PRO for the Order of Malta Ambulance Corps, an organization she has volunteered with for 18 years. Orlaith holds a BA in Communications and an MSc in Public Relations and Strategic Communications, both from Dublin City University.

He was involved for many years in the Northern Ireland peace process and was one of the Irish Government’s negotiators for the ground-breaking Good Friday Agreement. Mr Donoghue served at different times as the Irish Ambassador to Russia, Austria, and Germany. From 2001-4 he was the Director-General of Ireland’s development co-operation programme, today known as Irish Aid. He also served as Political Director from 2009-13, a post that gave him responsibility for Ireland’s overall foreign policy. 

From 2013-17 he was Ireland's Ambassador to the United Nations. He co-chaired the UN negotiations which in 2015 agreed new Sustainable Development Goals for the world, the largest and most complex negotiations in the UN's history. He also co-chaired the UN negotiations which produced the New York Declaration on migrants and refugees in 2016.

Having retired from the Irish foreign service in 2017, he is contributing today to the work of various think-tanks and academic communities on issues around sustainable development, migrants and refugees and conflict resolution.

David Donoghue brings to his Chairmanship of the Board of SPI a passionate and lifelong interest in film and the film industry as well as varied chairmanship experience and extensive knowledge of the Irish Government system.

Maggie’s passion lies within Culture and the Arts. As a long-time advocate for the artistic community, her vision and ambition is to push the boundaries of the reach of Arts programming. As well as promoting the use of the Irish language in the sector, Maggie is keen to contribute to the preservation and archive of the Irish Arts.

In 2016 Maggie was elected to the Board of Screen Producers Ireland (SPI). Maggie is an active member of the board and she sits on both the Committee for Irish Language Programming, An Coiste Gaeilge and the Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Committee.

Prior to that Mary spent 4 years as Project Manager at Bord Scannán na hÉireann/Irish Film Board where she served as executive producer on a range of feature films and documentaries. She was also Head of Development & Production/Executive Producer at Parallel Films. As Commissioning Editor for Drama at RTÉ she was responsible for all of RTÉ’s original drama programming both in-house and independently produced.

She has been a member of the Programme Bureau of the European Broadcasting Union Fiction Group; the Advisory Panel for Fás/Screen Training Ireland and a jury member for the International Emmys, The Royal Television Society and part of the programme selection committee for INPUT Television.

Given her diverse industry experience, Mary represents the sector in the broadest sense on the SPI board. Mary has represented SPI alongside the CEO and Chair with high level industry stakeholders including most recently presenting to the Oireachtas Committee on the subject of the Audio media services directive. Alongside her active board membership Mary is Chair of the recently established Screen Producers Ireland Diversity, Equality & Inclusion Committee and a member of the Screen Producers Ireland Finance & Governance Committee. She is currently overseeing the development of SPI DEI policy as Chair of the DEI Committee and the soon to be launched new SPI access programme for under-represented communities. Mary is a committee member of the Screen Ireland initiated, National Talent Academy, which is focused on developing access to diverse talent amongst writers, directors and producers to the industry.

Over the last 20 years Red Pepper Productions has produced award winning programmes for all of the national broadcasters, including the travel series Ó Tholg go Tolg, the genealogy series Tar Abhaile and most recently the two-part environmental documentary Cumhacht an Nádúir, for TG4. Red Pepper Productions also produced Fota: Into the Wild, Behind the Crime, Back to School and the ground-breaking social history series How the Irish Have Sex, for VMTV/TV3. And for RTÉ Island Life, Only Fools Buy Horses and Born Addicted.

A fluent Dutch speaker, Laura began her career in Belgium, with Canal+, before moving back to Ireland to produce TV3’s Entertainment News. 

Laura is passionate about representation of the small – medium scale producer company in the sector on the board of Screen Producers Ireland. Laura has represented SPI alongside the CEO and Chair with high level industry stakeholders. Alongside her active board membership Laura is a recent graduate of the first-ever Postgraduate Diploma in Advanced Producing from TU Dublin.

Gavin is a driving force in Paper Owl Films as the key business affairs contact and Executive Producer. Along with being an active member of the board of Screen Producers Ireland, Gavin sits on the Children’s TV Council for Screen Skills UK.

Paper Owl’s mission to deliver meaningful content experiences to young children is now an international force with Paper Owl Films content on air on RTÉJr, CBeebies, Netflix, SVT Sweden, Showmax, Africa, Abu Dhabi, Hunan MGTV.com China, The Children’s Network LLC: USA, Radio Television Hong Kong, YLE: Finland, GEE Media: United Arab Emirates, FOX Latin America: Caribeann, South America, Canadian Broadcasting Company, Canada, Spafax Airline Network, Hong Kong, Tencent: China, MSAT Global Com: Botswana, South Africa.

Gavin is the SPI board representative for animation and children’s programming, and the only member of the board from a company in Northern Ireland. As part of SPI member all-island growth strategy, he is also assisting the CEO on the growth potential of SPI services into Northern Ireland. Gavin is a member of the recently established Coiste Gaeilge, where he and the committee will shortly begin to oversee the development of SPI policy for the Irish language independent sector.

I am also working as a policy consultant for the European Producers Club, and I am a member of the Board of Directors of the Lir Academy, the Galway Film Resource Centre and the Irish Music Rights Organisation. I am former CEO of Screen Ireland (2011 to 2019) and former partner in charge of the media and entertainment law department of law firm Matheson (1992 to 2011). I am currently a member of the Film and TV Drama Committee of Screen Producers Ireland.

Macdara saw major success at the Irish box office with #1 hit, Black’47 starring Hugo Weaving, Jim Broadbent and Stephen Rea which became the highest grossing Irish film since Brooklyn in 2015. Other successes include The Hole in the Ground, Lee Cronin’s debut horror film, starring Seana Kerslake which premiered at the Midnight Section of Sundance 2019, Mammal starring Rachel Griffiths which premiered in competition at Sundance 2016; Strangerland, starring Nicole Kidman, premiered at Sundance 2015; What If starring Daniel Radcliffe, Zoe Kazan and Adam Driver premiered as a Toronto Gala Presentation and was released worldwide in 2014.

Macdara has most recently produced A24’s The Green Knight and Netflix series Fate: The Winx Saga Season 2 which is in post-production. Currently in production is the Season 2 of Apple’s Foundation.

Macdara represents the medium and large-scale film and TV drama sector on the SPI board. Macdara has represented SPI alongside the CEO and Chair with high level industry stakeholders. Alongside with his active board membership Macdara is an experienced and engaged member of the Screen Producers Ireland Film, TV, Drama Committee, where he was an active member of the recently agreed Crew Agreement as part of the negotiation team. Given his direct involvement in recent negotiations, Macdara has developed a specialist expertise in industrial relations negotiations on behalf of SPI. Macdara has produced some of the largest productions in Ireland in recent years and brings a distinct international focus to his role on the board.

Aoife joined Subotica in 2000 and has since produced and co-produced numerous international feature films and television dramas.

Feature film productions include Young Ones (Jake Paltrow, 2014) with Elle Fanning, Nicholas Hoult and Michael Shannon, period feature Miss Julie (Liv Ullmann, 2014) with Jessica Chastain and Colin Farrell, prison drama Michael Inside (Frank Berry, 2017), stylish noir thriller Terminal (Vaughn Stein, 2018) starring Margot Robbie and Mike Myers and action thriller Horizon Line (Mikael Marcimain, 2019) with Allison Williams and Alexander Dreymon. Upcoming releases include Aisha (Frank Berry 2021) with Letitia Wright and Josh O’Connor and Joyride (Emer Reynolds 2021) with Olivia Colman.

Recent Television credits include crime thriller Red Election (2020) starring Stephen Dillane and Lydia Leonard, and upcoming Irish -Swedish family crime drama series North Sea Connection (2021) starring Sinead Cusack and Lydia McGuinness.

Aoife is Chairperson of the Film and TV drama committee of Screen Producers Ireland. She has represented Irish filmmaking internationally over the years working on creative co-productions with many countries – the UK, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Spain, France, Finland, Canada and the US. The films she has developed and produced have screened at prestigious film festivals worldwide including Sundance, Berlin, Cannes and Toronto.

Aoife has also completed numerous screenwriting/development courses with Screen Training Ireland – including the ‘Development Executive Traineeship’ and ‘Cinematic Story Development’.

The film was theatrically released in Ireland/UK in late 2021 by Wildcard and is scheduled for a US release with Gravitas Ventures in 2022. Emma & Tamryn were nominated for the Bingham Ray new talent award at the 2020 Galway Film Fleadh. Off the back of Redemption of a Rogue, Conor Barry of Savage Productions brought the duo in to produce one of Screen Ireland's POV Scheme films - It Is In Us All (written & directed by Antonia Campbell-Hughes) where they secured the casting of Cosmo Jarvis. Currently Tamryn is focusing on developing a number of scripts with up and coming writers and directors.

They have won a number of awards and have been screened at the Chicago, Melbourne, Sydney, London, Taormina, Pordenone, Hong Kong, Augsburg, Geneva, Dublin, Cork, Galway, Belfast, Foyle and Celtic Film Festivals; at INPUT, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Cinémathèque Française; and as part of retrospectives throughout the world.

Donald worked in IADT for 15 years, as both Head of the Department of Film & Media and Creative Director of The National Film School. Donald was one of the original co-founders of Film Makers Ireland, which later became Screen Producers Ireland. His most recent documentary, New Gaels, won an RTS Ireland Television Award.

Donald represents the creative documentary sector on the SPI board, with particular expertise in the areas of strategy and policy development. Alongside his expertise and contribution given on the board, Donald is an active member of the Screen Producers Ireland Factual & Entertainment Committee, where he contributes to the development of SPI policy for the sector.