Beyond Shorts is a three-day workshop helping directors transition from shorts to features, through hands-on work with professional actors on a case study feature script.
Led by award-winning director Cathy Brady, the programme covers every stage — from audition and rehearsal to shooting and review. It offers a space to practise outside the pressures of production, giving directors the chance to build experience in areas where they may have limited exposure including:
Rehearsing with professional actors
Running an audition room
Working with a Casting Director
Managing tone
Sustaining longer character & story arcs
Blocking staging & shooting scenes at scale
What to
expect
key dates
THIS COURSE RUNS IN 2025
Applications Open: September 15
Application Deadline: October 6 at 12 noon
Participants Notified: October 18
Pre-Workshop Script Analysis: October 22
Pre-Workshop Mentoring 1 to 1: October 23/24
Programme Dates: October 28–30
Post-Workshop Mentoring 1 to 1: December 5
TEAM
The programme is led by Cathy Brady, award-winning director. A casting session will be taught by Maureen Hughes, one of Ireland’s leading casting directors. Produced for Cherry Red Pictures by Maeve Stone.
Cathy Brady is an award-winning filmmaker whose debut feature Wildfire won the IFTA for Best Director and the BIFA for Best Debut Screenwriter.
She has directed TV drama for Channel 4, Paramount+, and RTÉ, and is currently developing her next feature script, Dirty Score, while also set to direct a new BBC series in 2026.
Alongside her filmmaking career, Cathy lectures on the MA Directing Fiction course at the National Film and Television School (UK), and has run courses and workshops for Bow Street, Ardán, and Run of The Mill.
Maureen Hughes began her career with Druid Theatre in 1984 and later became Casting Director at the Abbey Theatre.
She has collaborated with filmmakers including Martin McDonagh, Jim Sheridan, Paolo Sorrentino, and Werner Herzog, with recent credits such as Small Things Like These, That They May Face the Rising Sun, and Herzog’s Bucking Fastards.
On television, she is known for Love/Hate, Hidden Assets, The Walsh Sisters (BBC1), and U.S. dramas Dawn (Hulu) and Nightflyers (NBC). Theatre credits span McDonagh’s Beauty Queen of Leenane to Jez Butterworth’s The Ferryman.
She co-founded The Factory Bow Street, developing new Irish acting talent.
Maeve Stone is a director, writer and producer for theatre and film. She is co-founder of Cracking Light Productions and makes work that is future focused, ambitious and connects people.
Her work has toured nationally and internationally, and she has collaborated with artists across disciplines to create innovative, socially engaged work.
Maeve produces Beyond Shorts for Cherry Red Pictures, bringing her experience in cross-platform storytelling and her commitment to supporting emerging voices in film.
Location
The workshop takes place at Bow Street Academy
