Sam Ahern(II)

Sam's latest film Night Glances, played at the 2024 Galway Film Fleadh, Cork International Film Festival and is in competition at the 2024 Belfast Film Festival. A follow-on from their successful writing/directing debut Late Bloomers, which was selected for the Belfast Film Festival 2023, Gaze Film Festival 2023, and aGLIFF in Austin, TX. Both of these films were made with Komo Collective, led by Sam and Kieran (Sherry) Sheridan, and are both heartfelt, queer coming-of-age stories.

Sam wrote the short film Safe As Houses (Screen Ireland's Focus Shorts) which screened at Slamdance Film Festival and 50 film festivals internationally, winning many awards. Safe As Houses received development funding from Screen Ireland to turn the world of the short into a TV series on which Sam is the lead writer. Sam's writing work has focused on social realism and long-form community research in the last 3 years.

Sam is the proud new festival manager for the Gaze Film Festival and watches shorts for the Tribeca Film Festival annually, co-programming the 2023 shorts Pride programme with Alice Shone. Sam previously worked at Copper Alley Productions with Lara Hickey and Jack Hickey for two years as the production and development executive, working across a slate of successful projects. From 2014-2018 Sam worked at Dublin International Film Festival as the projects manager. Over the last year, Sam has been selected for the Screen Ireland Mentorship Programme with writer Malcolm Campbell, a Tyrone Gutherie Residency, and X-Pollinator 2024. Sam was also an assistant producer on Lesbian Lines, the new film by Cara Holmes, produced by Evan Horan from Keeper Pictures. Sam holds an MA in Screenwriting from the National Film School at IADT, a BDes in Visual Communication from NCAD, is a 2019 Warner Bros. Creative Talent alumni and a full member of the Writer's Guild of Ireland.