Young Irish Film Makers has a strong and dedicated staff catering for all needs from film through theatre. Here's your chance to put some faces to the names and find out a little more.

The staff section is currently under development (April 2005) but will shortly display profiles and details on our staff members allowing you an insight into the running of Young Irish Film Makers.

Artistic Director

Mike Kelly is the Artistic Director of the Young Irish Film Makers which he founded in his native Kilkenny in 1991.

His background is in youth, community and theatre work which began in 1965 when he founded the Kilkenny Youth Theatre in 1966. He has awards for acting and directing culminating in an All-Ireland Directors Award in 1976.

In 1979 he was appointed to a full time position as a youth worker with inner city kids in Fulham, London. After working there for five years he began studies at Middlesex Polytechnic where he was awarded a B.A.(Hons) degree in Theatre and Film Studies.

In 1988 he went to Sydney, Australia to work with a street children’s project in Bondi. It was while running a youth outreach video project with Metro Television in Sydney that he developed the idea of a youth film production organisation.

In 1991 he returned to Kilkenny to set up the Young Irish Film Makers and in 1998 he produced their first feature UNDER THE HAWTHORN TREE for Channel 4 and RTE.

In 1999 he directed D’BOYZ, a teen punk film, which premiered at the Fresh Film Festival in Limerick. In 2002 he established the National Youth Film School and wrote their feature film THE CHILDREN which won two awards in US film festivals. He wrote and directed their second feature STEALAWAY which won the Columbine Award at the Moondance Film Festival in Denver.

He is currently developing a number of feature film projects for the Young Irish Film Makers and the 2008 National Youth Film School.