Claire Frances Byrne is an award winning and IFTA nominated director of short films and commercials. She currently has a strong slate of feature film projects in funded development.

Claire Byrne is a Writer, Director and Editor based in Dublin, Ireland. She graduated in 2013 with a masters degree from Screen Academy Scotland in Directing for Screen and spent the years following, working in the industry in both production and post-production. Since 2017 she has directed 6 short films and several commercial pieces, while maintaining a career in TV editing. Her Screen Ireland funded short film ‘Sister This’ has had huge success over the last two years, winning best short film at the Kinsale Shark awards and Fastnet Film festival and getting a nomination for the 2020 IFTA’s.

In early 2020 Claire won the Aer Lingus discovery Award at the Dublin International Film Festival where ‘Sister This’ screened. Also in 2020 she was chosen for The Voice Fund; Director’s Conceptual Fund, alongside established directors like Dearbhla Walsh and Paddy Breathnach, and was granted development money through the scheme. Later in the year she was chosen as a mentee in the first round of the Screen Skills Ireland Mentorship Program and was assigned director Paddy Breathnach as a mentor.

Claire was also successful with a project she put forward for the X-pollinator Incubator scheme where she secured funding to write a treatment and subsequently a commission to write a feature film with her writing partner Karen Healy from Blinder Films.

2021 has been a busy year for Claire as she moves away from editing for TV and has had her hands full with feature projects in development, writing, producing and directing 2 new short films. Claire is attached as director for a feature length drama written by Lynn Ruane and produced by Ruth Coady that was awarded Screen Ireland development funding. She is also attached as director to the first feature film of her co-owned production company Alfonso Films.