"Story? – International Student Documentary Festival", the only international student documentary film festival of its kind in Ireland, has been running for the past two years. The third festival will take place next April in the Rory Gallagher Theatre at Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) in lovely Cork City, Ireland.
The festival is run by the Media Communications Department at CIT, which is part of the Crawford College of Art and Design, and is run in association with CIT’s Arts Office.
Three main types of documentary can be submitted for the festival – documentaries, branded documentaries and animations that have a documentary element. Over the past two years we have screened documentaries from Cork, Ireland in general, the Netherlands and the UK and this year we hope to attract vibrant student work from all over the world. Documentaries can be no longer than 15 minutes.
Filmmakers whose documentaries were featured at previous festivals came to Cork for the awards ceremony and had a great time exploring its attractions. We will extend an invitation to visit Cork to the filmmakers whose work is chosen for the 2020 festival. Films are screened in the intimate Rory Gallagher Theatre, named for the world famous Cork blues/rock guitarist Rory Gallagher.
"Story?" has a strong link with CampusDoc, an international student documentary film festival that is held in the Dutch city of Utrecht every June. CampusDoc alumni have had their films shown at "Story?" in the past two years.
This year a number of prizes will be on offer: first prize goes to the best documentary of the festival and there will be five more prizes: Best of Cork; Best Animated Documentary; Best Branded Documentary; Best International Documentary and an Audience Award.
At the inaugural festival, the prize for the best documentary went to “Inside the Circle”, by Lauren Bos and Hein van den Bogaert from the Netherlands, which told the story of two professional handball players who needed to juggle their ambitions to be the best in their sport with their own personal relationship together. Last year the prize for the winning documentary went to “Da Hillsook Wedeen”, an evocative historical documentary about the Shetland Islands made by Hope Strickland from Manchester.
Please Note: due to the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic, we are unable to host the festival at Cork Institute of Technology as originally planned. We are running the festival online on April 23rd and 24th instead.
Awards will be given in six categories. A trophy and/or certificate will be presented in each category
• Best Documentary of the Festival
• Best of Cork
• Best Animated Documentary
• Best Branded Documentary
• Best International Documentary
• Audience Award