CATALYST BEST SCREENPLAY AWARD

Amy-Joyce was the winner of the Best Short Screenplay Award 2023 for her screenplay Perspective at the Catalyst International Film Festival. This prestigious award is sponsored by the Writers Guild of Ireland, of which Amy-Joyce now becomes a member. Catalyst International Film Festival, now in its 5th year, is a festival championing diverse voices and it was founded by the president of Women in Film & Television International, Dr. Susan Liddy.

The award was adjudicated by writer/director Frank Berry (Aisha, Michael Inside) and writer Ursula Rani Sarma (Smother). Amy-Joyce additionally enjoyed screenwriting and directing workshops at the festival with renowned director Aisling Walsh (Maudie).

Perspective was recently a finalist for the Kerry International Film Festival Screenplay Award, and the Pune Short Film Festival Screenplay Award, as well as a previous winner in the screenplay category of the Hammond House International Literary Festival. The script is a current screenplay finalist for the upcoming Waterford International Film Festival.

Perspective is a short film book-ended with two Halloween nights, one year apart. A young girl, Hazel, loses her eye in a firework attack. Instead of giving in to despair, her natural optimism and resilience allows her to reimagine herself, in the process inspiring the adults around her.

The project is currently in development with Danú Media (producers Nadine Flynn and Louise Richardson attached) to bring the project to screen.

FOCAIL BAILE CROÍ Wraps Filming in Kerry

Home is many things. Words are everything.

Filming has wrapped on Focail Baile Croí (Words Home Heart) in which Amy-Joyce plays the female lead role of Máthair (Mother).

This beautiful Irish language short was the winner of the Comórtas Físín funding award, funded by Screen Kerry and winner of multiple festival screenplay awards including the Catalyst Film Festival/Writers Guild of Ireland Best Short Screenplay.

The story – which spans thirty years within the walls of one household – revolves around a father imagining moments he will share with his son, teaching him words for his experiences in a home full of language and heart. 


Focail Baile Croí is at once a cinematic love letter to the Irish language and a reimagining of grief as a privilege of love.

Filming took place over one week in County Kerry. The film is written and directed by Screen International Rising Star Katie McNeice, produced by Maggie Ryan of Escape Pod Media, with Evan Barry onboard as cinematographer. It stars Lochlann O’Mearáin, Fiach Kunz and Amy-Joyce Hastings. On set photography by Tim Bingham.