Dublin 24 students win Trócaire documentary prize

Trócaire have announced the winning entrants for their documentary film making programme “The Right Focus – with students from Kingswood Community College, Dublin 24 scooping the award for third place with their documentary Disconnected.

The initiative saw innovative entries from young people in post-primary schools and youth groups around Ireland exploring global justice issues through the lens of short documentary films – with students voting on their favourite documentaries on the day.

The competition received a phenomenal number of entries of short films – designed to bring injustices to the front and centre of people’s minds, to hopefully inspire them to take action and make a difference – with 12 short films making it through to the finals in Dublin’s Light House Cinema.

Showcasing a passion for telling stories and highlighting important issues such as War and Conflict, Climate Change, Business and Human Rights, Gender Equality and Refugees.

The winners are:

First Place: Clongowes Wood College, Kildare

Second Place: Loreto College, Mullingar, Westmeath

Third Place: Kingswood Community College, Dublin 24

Student Sol Stuart from Kingswood Community College, Dublin 24 said “I had a great time. I had a blast making this documentary and I learned a lot of skills. It was really interesting to watch everyone else’s documentaries too.”

Their teacher Toni Hannon said “overall I found  the experience very educational. I’m very proud of Sol who demonstrated an excellent documentary. He told me he’s going to practice over the summer and come back stronger next year so he’s very inspired to make more. Overall an excellent experience and opportunity.”

Caoimhe de Barra, Trócaire CEO said “throughout history documentaries have been very important on social justice issues, informing, educating and mobilising people to take action. To this very day Trócaire uses documentaries on all of the big issues that we care about and what we mobilise people around.”

“We are so impressed with the documentaries produced by all the students, the themes they chose are very interesting and hugely relevant to today’s worlds spanning important issues such as War and Conflict, Climate Change, Business and Human Rights, Gender Equality and Refugees.”