As the inaugural Trans Image/Trans Experience Film (TITE) Festival prepares to take Dublin by storm, it’s time to roll out the red carpet for some of the most exciting talent Ireland has to offer. With the help of three key voices in Irish trans cinema, programmer James Hudson dives into the past, present and future of the scene, all the while spotlighting some must-see works screening at TITE and beyond.

If you love films with flirty moments of love-drunk discovery, Sam Ahern’s short Night Glances is made for you. If you want to get even more intimate, look no further than Caleb J. Roberts’ messy, sexy drama Purebred. And if you want to go darker, Liadán Roche’s Terratoma brings a new depth to ‘suffering for your art’.

These three filmmakers have created stories of hope and torment; fleeting touches and full penetration; romance, tragedy, love, trauma, sex, and sock puppets. Their interests and experiences may be varied, but they are all connected to an Irish trans film scene that has been blooming since 2022.

All three also appear in the Trans Image/Trans Experience (TITE) Film Festival’s recently announced programme; Night Glances and Terratoma are among the 40 shorts and seven features screening at TITE 2025, while Caleb is part of the festival’s fourperson team. Including Sam and Liadán’s, nine new productions are eligible for TITE’s inaugural Best Irish Short award—but no matter who takes home the prize, it’s clear that Irish trans film as a whole is on a winning streak.

Irish trans film doesn’t have a long history, but it does have one. Neil Jordan featured trans protagonists (although somewhat controversially) in The Crying Game (1992) and Breakfast on Pluto (2005), TG4 produced the documentary Tras (2020), and we may soon add Donncha Gilmore’s indie romance Girls & Boys (in post-production) to this lineup. While none of these films have been directed by out trans people, there have been features by Irish trans directors, such as Dublin comedy darling Bicycle Thieves: Pumped Up (2021) directed by non-binary comedian Conor O’Toole. But films with trans people behind the camera are harder to identify than those with trans actors or topics. Outside of features, a smattering of Irish short films featuring trans protagonists have been produced over the last 20 years, but with rare exceptions (like former Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI) chair Cat McIlroy’s What I Am (2008)), these have been written and directed by cis filmmakers.

 

Visualizza questo post su Instagram

 

Un post condiviso da TITE Film Festival (@titefilmfest)

Nevertheless, Caleb says, “Irish trans film has a real hunger behind it. It’s electric.” Considering how our scarce trans film history has brought us to the present day, he adds, “We’ve been exposed to the stepping stones of queer storytelling from other countries long before the resources were there for us. Now, we’re jumping right ahead.”

Alongside Sam, Caleb and Liadán’s work, in recent years, we’ve seen:

• Allie O’Rourke and Becky Cheatle co-write the short Punch Line (2022)
• Venus Patel exhibit video art Eggshells (2022) and Daisy: Prophet of the Apocalypse (2023)
• Pradeep Mahadeshwar explore identity in The Concept of Self (2022) and Skin to Skin Talks (2023)
• Jackson Lennon write and star in Boxed In (2022) and Farfalle (2024)
• Hiram Harrington direct giallo-inspired Glory, Hole (2023) and Overtone (2024)
• Elisa Beli Borrelli create the animated shorts nostalgia (2022), another go (2024), there’s a light (2024) and see you soon (2024)
• Kai Donohoe co-write the homecoming drama Over The Moon (2025)

This isn’t an exhaustive list, and it hardly touches on the contributions of trans performers and crew members across the industry (actor Liath Hannon is nothing short of a rising star, Robyn Avery has composed devastating music, Murky Anyango is a multi-hyphenate writer-editor-composercinematographer…). But it’s a stark contrast from Ireland’s sparse trans film history in the years prior.

Sam worked in film for over 10 years before coming out as non-binary, but when they began transitioning a couple of years ago, “I suddenly seemed to be surrounded by people, organisations and initiatives actively supporting trans filmmakers and films…On the last day of [X-Pollinator 2024], my friend Allie O’Rourke gave an incredible talk about trans representation in film and proposed that we could create the new Irish Trans Wave of cinema.”

A small group chat for Irish trans filmmakers was started shortly after, and in the months since, “now there are 37 of us!”

Scattered among these trans-led productions, you’ll find funding from Virgin Media, Actor as Creator, NTA First Credit, awards from Screen Ireland, the Arts Council, county council bursaries and more, as well as training from various arts universities and mentorships. Bar the starGAZE LGBTQIA Talent Development Programme, these schemes are not new, but they have increasingly (though not always) been awarded to trans-led productions over trans films by cis filmmakers.

“I think we have amazing support through Screen Ireland and the Arts Council in Ireland,” says Sam. Their past and developing projects have received funding through Screen Ireland, but they’ve yet to see Irish funding tailored to support trans filmmakers.

“The BFI recently ran The Darkroom—a development lab for trans horror feature film development…We’d all die and go to heaven if we got access to something like that.”

Sam, Caleb, Liadán, and Hiram Harrington are all developing thriller/horror features—but only Caleb, based in Belfast, was eligible for (and accepted into) The Darkroom. His recent films have all been supported by Northern Ireland Screen.

“I see a lot more trans work coming from Ireland generally,” he says, “but a significant amount of it isn’t supported through funding schemes. When it is, it’s usually not a trans team behind it, which I’m bored of. We’re past that.”

 

Visualizza questo post su Instagram

 

Un post condiviso da TITE Film Festival (@titefilmfest)

Reflecting on what characterises Irish trans film, Liadán says, “I think there certainly is a more DIY feel, and this is partly an aesthetic choice but also partly to do with the fact that we’re all desperately trying to scrape together any funding…I also think they’re quite harrowing. I’m thinking of Glory, Hole here of course but also there’s a light. I was definitely tapping into a quite tumultuous and awful feeling with Terratoma.”

This idea was echoed by film studies scholar James Lowell Brunton at the 2024 Trans* Research Association of Ireland Symposium, where he claimed Irish trans films were generally darker than their American counterparts.

“For me,” Sam elaborates, “being trans comes with a lot of self-discovery and taking offthese layers of masking and social conditioning relating to gender. [Combining that] with our own culture, which historically has a lot of shame and sexual repression, results in these kinds of all-feelings-bared, messy, horny, funny, dark films that often contain a shock factor, which is very grounded in something real.”

Even for Sam, whose recent work has a “tenderness that comes from wanting to understand others, understand yourself,” their dream project is a horror feature that’s “trans and feminist, twisted and kinky” and would provide practical gore SFX aplenty.

Despite this thriller/horror trend, funding for Irish films with trans protagonists has leaned towards small-scale dramas with themes of social tolerance and family acceptance; the majority of those ‘harrowing’ trans films sprouting up in tandem have been student films or DIY/self-funded productions.

Liadán’s feature script is “an ambitious body horror film about a string of possessions that have ripped apart the Irish trans community,” but she’s struggled with funding her developing horror short Hostile Architecture.

“We’ve had a really difficult time packaging it for our more conservative Irish funders,” she says.

“It’s a very intimate T4T story through a grounded sci-fi/horror lens…[and] the one thing Irish funders hate more than genre is sex and trans people.” She’s only half-joking.

“Okay, that’s a bit facetious. But there are many trans filmmakers in Ireland who are not getting access to the money they need for their projects and I’m tired of watching talented people scrape by. Our trans film scene is flourishing despite this lack of interest in us… so just imagine what could happen if we were given the proper funding!”

 

Visualizza questo post su Instagram

 

Un post condiviso da TITE Film Festival (@titefilmfest)

Funding trans art doesn’t only mean paying writers/ directors. If Ireland wants a more genuinely diverse film industry, focusing on trans creatives ‘above the line’ risks undervaluing trans people in the technical roles that bring a film together.

“I don’t get a huge sense of trans crew in the industry at the moment,” says Sam. “I’d love to meet more trans DPs, designers, performers, composers, caterers, editors, distributors, etc. They are every bit as important as a writer, a director, or a producer.”

To counteract this invisibilising of trans film workers, the TITE Film Festival aims to “shift the focus of trans film from representation to craft” by highlighting trans film workers off-screen. Caleb emphasises, “TITE has welcomed submissions from trans/non-binary folks in all departments, from costume to camera, with some films reflecting entirely trans crews. It’s such a pivotal time for trans filmmaking and I hope we see continued efforts for trans crew across productions.”

For now, the Irish Trans Wave is just beginning to swell. Filmmakers creating work over the last three years are starting to find one another, make connections, fill crews, and shoot films together. On our worst days, Ireland can feel like a dead end—but not for Liadán, who is eagerly returning to Dublin after studying in London for two years. The local trans film scene is at the fore of her mind.

“It’s part of the reason I’m moving back to Ireland,” she says.

“Over the past year or so, the trans film community has been coming together on projects, sharing resources and arranging workshops and screenings. Everything feels new and full of potential…It feels like everyone from filmmaker to programmer is interested in making Ireland a queer and trans filmmaking haven. And with the amount of powerhouse trans creatives and filmmakers working here, I think that it’s bound to happen.”

Trans Image/Trans Experience (TITE) is Ireland’s first festival of trans and non-binary cinema, taking place from April 25 to 27, 2025, at Light House Cinema. Find out more about TITE at this link.