Screen Producers Ireland (SPI) has announced the winners of the UIP Irish Directors Awards which will be presented at the Cork Film Festival this coming weekend.

Inaugurated in 2000 by SPI in conjunction with UIP and the Irish Film Board and open only to Irish directors they remain, with a prize fund of Euros 30,000, the largest awards of their kind in Ireland.

The categories and awards are Best Director Feature Film - Euros 20,000; Best Director Live Action Short - Euros 5,000; and Best Director Animation Short - Euros 5,000.

The winner of the award for Best Director - Feature Film is John Crowley for his debut film, Intermission. Crowley is Associate Director at the Donmar Warehouse theatre in London. His recent work in the theatre includes On A Average Day starring Woody Harrelson and Kyle MacLachlan. Intermission also leads the running with eleven nominations in the forthcoming Irish Film & Television Awards to be decided on November 1.

Crowley is currently working with Intermission writer Mark O'Rowe and producer Parallel Films on a new project, Perrier's Bounty, with development support from the Irish Film Board and the UK Film Council.

The winner of the award for Best Director - Animation short is Rory Bresnihan for The Butterfly Collector, in which an obsessive butterfly-hunter takes his hobby one step too far. A number of Bresnihan's earlier films, including The Chameleon and Guy's Dog, have also been award winners. He is now working on a number of projects including a feature entitled Squinks.

The award for Best Director - Live Action Short is made to a director of one of this year's Irish Film Board short film schemes - Short Cuts, Oscailt and Short Shorts - and is being judged at the Cork Film Festival. The winner will be announced at the award ceremony at 8.30pm on Saturday night which takes place prior to the gala screening of Love Actually.