Brendan Canty’s Christy won the best Irish film prize at the Galway Film Fleadh, as the 37th edition of the Irish festival drew to a close yesterday (July 13).
Christy is based on Canty’s short film of the same name and follows a 17-year-old after he’s thrown out of his suburban foster home and moves in with his estranged older half-brother in Cork.
Danny Power, Emma Willis and Chris Walley star in the UK-Ireland co-production between Marina Brackenbury and Wayward Films’ Meredith Duff, with Rory Gilmartin of London and Dublin-based Sleeper Films.
BBC Film and Screen Ireland supported the project, with Charades representing sales. Altitude and Wildcard will release the film in UK and Irish cinemas respectively later this year.
Christy received its world premiere as the opening film of theGeneration 14plus competition at Berlinale 2025, and has also played at Karlovy Vary and opened the Transilvania International Film Festival.
Further prize winners in Galway include Edwin Mullane and Adam O’Keeffe’s Horseshoe, which was named best Irish first feature. The comedy drama shot across County Sligo and County Leitrim and follows four estranged siblings who reunite after the death of their father only to unearth their own deep secrets.
Gar O’Rourke’s Sanatorium took home best Irish documentary. The doc premiered at CPH:DOX and is set in southern Ukraine, where despite a war close by, mud treatments and electro-therapies continue at Kuyalnik Sanatorium. Trisha Ziff’s Gerry Adams – A Ballymurphy Man won best international documentary, with former president of Sinn Féin Adams in attendance at the festival.
Lance Daly’s Trad won the audience award. It is the follow-up to Black ’47, which was a big box office success in Ireland in 2018, taking $1.3m (€1.6m), one of distributor Wildcard’s biggest successes to-date. Trad follows gifted fiddle player and her young brother as they leave their home in the Donegal Gaeltacht and take to the road with a troupe of wandering musicians.
Over six days, the Fleadh screened 97 feature films, as well as hosting the Galway Film Fair, where directors, writers and producers held over 700 pitch meetings with execs from the likes of Netflix, Mubi, Vue Lumiere, Bankside, Cornerstone, Embankment, Hanway, Protagonist, Mister Smith Entertainment, the BFI, BBC Film and Film4.
The winner of the best marketplace project went to Cristian Nicolescu’s black comedy from Romania Ten Mickeys, while the pitching award went to Carol Murphy’s 19th century Irish famine folk fable The Body + Blood.
Galway Film Fleadh 2025 winners
Best Irish film
Christy dir. Brendan Canty
Best Irish first feature
Horseshoe dir. Edwin Mullane, Adam O’Keeffe
Best Irish documentary
Sanatorium dir. Gar O’Rourke
Best Irish language feature film
Báite dir. Ruán Magan
Best independent Irish film
Solitary dir. Eamon Murphy and Girls & Boys dir. Donncha Gilmore (joint winners)
World cinema competition
Winter In Sokcho dir. Koya Kamura
Audience Award
Trad dir. Lance Daly
Bingham Ray new talent award
Jessica Reynolds, The Wolf, The Fox & The Leopard
Peripheral visions award
Vitrival – The Most Beautiful Village In The World dirs. Noëlle Bastin, Baptiste Bogaert
Generation jury award
Where The Wind Comes From
Dir. Amel Guellaty
Best international feature film
Dragonfly dir. Paul Andrew Williams
Best international documentary
Gerry Adams – A Ballymurphy Man dir. Trisha Ziff
Best international independent film
Adult Children dir. Rich Newey
Best cinematography in an Irish film
Listen To The Land Speak dir. Maurice O’Brien
Marketplace awards
Best documentary project
John Lennon’s Island, Gary Lennon
Audience design award
Beneath the Surface, Fiona Ashe
Best marketplace project
Ten Mickeys, Cristian Nicolescu
The Pitching Award
The Body + Blood, Carol Murphy
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