Dublin-based production company Element Pictures has announced the inaugural Irish screenwriting festival Storyhouse, which aims to champion the art of storytelling.
The annual festival will be held in Smithfield's Light House Cinema on Thursday 21 and Friday 22 March.
Speakers announced for the festival's first run include Oscar nominee Tony McNamara (Poor Things, The Favourite), Oscar nominee and BAFTA winner Arthur Harari (Anatomy of a Fall), Molly Manning Walker (How to Have Sex) and Charlotte Regan (Scrapper).
Novelist and screenwriter David Nicholls (One Day) and writer-director Ali Abbasi (Holy Spider) will also be appearing at the two-day festival, with more speakers set to be announced along with a full programme in the coming weeks.
Aspiring screenwriters are also invited to apply for Storyhouse Lab, an inclusive professional development programme to run as part of the festival.
The lab will provide a small cohort of emerging writers with complimentary access to all Storyhouse events as well as additional sessions with guests under the mentorship of BAFTA and IFTA-winning TV and film screenwriter Malcolm Campbell (What Richard Did, Bad Sisters).
Storyhouse is a not-for-profit initiative of Element Pictures, the company behind films such as Poor Things, The Favourite and the acclaimed TV series Normal People, and is spearheaded by co-CEO Ed Guiney.
Storyhouse founder and Element co-CEO Guiney commented: "I have long nurtured the idea of establishing an annual festival of screenwriting in Dublin - bringing the best writers and screen storytellers in the world to our city.
"I'm delighted with our initial line-up of amazing talent and I hope that the participants at Storyhouse will be inspired and emboldened by first-hand accounts of the joys and challenges of writing and making brilliant scripts.
"I also believe there is an incredible opportunity for Ireland - given its rich literary heritage - to become a world centre of excellence for screenwriting and I hope the festival will help inspire, empower and catalyse a new and diverse generation of Irish-based writers to create, develop and produce their stories for a global audience."
Storyhouse is supported by Screen Ireland, Fremantle and Element Pictures and is produced in association with the Light House Cinema.
Tickets will go on sale on Monday 26 February at 9am through Eventbrite and details can be found on the Storyhouse website, storyhouseireland.com.
