– Other winners included Rebekah Fortune’s Learning to Breathe Under Water, Dallan Shovlin’s You’ll Never Believe Who’s DeadBeautiful Evening Beautiful Day
The Lost Children of Tuam by Frank Berry
The 38th Galway Film Fleadh (7 – 12 July) wrapped on Sunday, revealing the winners of its record-breaking 2026 edition. The event welcomed sky-high numbers of attendees across its six-day programme, while the accompanying Galway Film Fair also recorded its highest-ever participation figures, bringing together producers, financiers, sales agents, distributors, broadcasters and marketplace delegates from all around the world.
The Best Irish Film Award was presented to The Lost Children of Tuam by Frank Berry. A drama written by Rebecca Lenkiewicz and produced by Liam Neeson, Jules Daly, Chelsea Morgan Hoffmann, Andrew Lowe, Ed Guiney and Martina Niland, the movie tells the story of historian Catherine Corless and her campaign to uncover the truth behind the Tuam Mother and Baby Home. The film’s premiere was so over-subscribed that festival organisers found themselves having to schedule an additional screening.
The Element Pictures Award for Best Irish First Feature was presented to Dallan Shovlin‘s Christmas heist comedy You’ll Never Believe Who’s Dead, in which an Irish family who are struggling financially plot to rob a reclusive farmer, only to find that their target is far from what he seems. The Best Irish Feature Documentary Award was shared between Oisín Mistéil’s Try! following four mixed-ability Irish rugby players as they pursue World Cup glory, and The S.U., directed by Gerard Conway, Mark Byrne, and Rob Dennis, which focuses on the University of Galway’s student union leaders over two years.
Best Independent Irish Film, for its part, was won by Cathal Fitzpatrick‘s post-apocalyptic sci-fi horror, Hollow Trees, while Kev L Smith‘s documentary, Cill Stiúifín, in which a folklorist investigates the legend of a vanished Irish coastal village, received the Best Irish Language Film Award. Best Cinematography in an Irish Film was bestowed upon Lukas Gut for the documentary The Siege Of Paradise, which was directed by Gar O’Rourke and which world-premiered in Tribeca, and Irish writer-director Peter Young was honoured with the Bingham Ray New Talent Award for his debut family thriller Our House, in which three estranged siblings reunite for their mother’s wake, only for an inheritance dispute to descend into betrayal and murder.
The Best International Film Award went to Ivona Juka‘s Croatian drama Beautiful Evening Beautiful Day, Best International Documentary was awarded to Xackery Irving‘s Brace for Oblivion, and The Peripheral Visions Award – dedicated to first and second features by emerging European filmmakers – was granted to Josefina Rautiainen’s How To Shout. As for the Audience Award, this was won by Rebekah Fortune’s Learning to Breathe Under Water, a coming-of-age drama filmed entirely in Galway which premiered in Karlovy Vary last week.
The Galway Film Fair also singled out a selection of projects in development: Wild Atlantic Pictures presented the Best Pitching Award to The Ruin of The Earth by Yannick Janey; Bankside Films supported the Best Marketplace Project Award, which went to Dolores Rice’s short film, Fat, and Impronta Films awarded Best Marketplace Documentary Project to Chloé Pisco’s Dances with Whales. Last but not least, the Audience Design Award went to Violent Delights, produced by Cellar Door Cinema Club Productions.
The full list of winners is as follows:
Best Irish Film
The Lost Children of Tuam – Frank Berry (Ireland)
Best Irish First Feature Film
You’ll Never Believe Who’s Dead – Dallan Shovlin (Ireland)
Best Irish Feature-Length Documentary (jointly won)
Try – Oisín Mistéil (Ireland)
The S.U. – Gerard Conway, Mark Byrne, Rob Dennis (Ireland)
Best Independent Irish Film
Hollow Trees – Cathal Fitzpatrick (Ireland)
Best Irish Language Film
Cill Stiúifín – Kev L. Smith (Ireland)
Best Cinematography in an Irish Film
Lukas Gut – The Siege Of Paradise (Ireland/Switzerland)
Best International Film
Beautiful Evening Beautiful Day – Ivona Juka (Croatia/Canada/Cyprus/Bosnia and Herzegovina/Serbia/Poland)
Best International Documentary
Brace for Oblivion – Xackery Irving (Ukraine/USA)
Peripheral Visions Award
How to Shout – Josefina Rautiainen (Finland)
Bingham Ray New Talent Award
Peter Young – Our House (Ireland)
Audience Award
Learning to Breathe Under Water – Rebekah Fortune (Ireland/UK/Netherlands)
Galway Film Fair Awards
Pitching Award
The Ruin of the Earth – Yannick Janey
Best Marketplace Project
Fat – Dolores Rice (Alice Productions, Ashore Productions)
Best Marketplace Documentary Project
Dances with Whales – Chloé Pisco (Oxytocin Productions)
Audience Design Award
Violent Delights
