By Tara Maher
The 2023/2024 6th class students of Shanbally National School, under the guidance of their teacher Stephen Cunningham, participated in the 19th Annual FÍS Film Awards held at the Helix DCU on February 12th, 2025.
The students chose to recreate the story of Anne Frank in a 5-minute film, a challenging task that involved replicating 1940s Amsterdam within the confines of their school and church. The FÍS Film Awards aim to promote film in primary education, fostering creativity and imagination among students and teachers.
The award ceremony was hosted by Cork native Sinead Kennedy (of RTE) and various categories of all aspects of film-making were acknowledged and awarded.
Initially they were thrilled to win in the category of Outstanding Achievement for Curricular Relevance in History. While they were conscious of the exceptionally high standard of our fellow competitors, hopes were high that they would feature strongly in the overall best film category.
That said, in a thrilling climax, they were ecstatic to hear their school being announced as the winners of the Aileen MacKeogh Award for Film of the Year i.e. best Overall Film. The group were invited on stage to accept the prestigious trophy and were presented with two high quality iPads to assist in future film making.The group was initially thrilled to win the Outstanding Achievement for Curricular Relevance in History award. Despite recognizing the high standard of the competition, they hoped to place well in the overall best film category. In an exciting climax, the group was ecstatic to hear their school announced as the winner of the Aileen MacKeogh Award for Film of the Year (best overall film). The group was invited on stage to accept the prestigious trophy and received two high-quality iPads to assist in future film making.
They were delighted to hear subsequently of the tangible excitement and joy amongst all the classes back in school who were watching the Award Ceremony live. More importantly it has sowed the seed of ambition and desire for the younger classes to get involved in such projects going forward.
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