THE TEAM
Gráinne Humphreys
Executive Festival Director
Gráinne has worked in film programming for over 20 years; she started her career working with young audiences with the Junior Dublin Film Festival in 1994. In 1995 she joined the IFI as Education Officer and expanded her role to include programming seasons on Andy Warhol, Agnès Varda and Harold Pinter. She became Assistant Director in 2001 and programmed both the Stranger Than Fiction Documentary Festival and the Dublin French Film Festival from 2002 to 2007. Among other projects, she co-edited Ireland into Film, a series of publications on a number of key Irish films.
She has served as a jury member on several international film festivals and has coordinated numerous Irish film seasons at international events. She is a Board Member of the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris and has been Festival Director of the Dublin International Film Festival since 2007.
This year, Grainne was named Creative Businesswoman of the Year at the IMAGE PWC Businesswomen of the Year Awards 2024, and was welcomed as a member to the prestigious European Film Academy.
Samuel Javid
Director of Commercial and Marketing
Sam looks after the development of the festival’s partnerships and audiences, finding fresh and exciting ways of collaborating and introducing more people to the festival.
Prior to this, Sam was the Creative Director of The Culture Trust, Luton (UK), an entrepreneurial arts charity developing and delivering programmes across multiple venues and sites.
Sam has worked extensively across the UK developing and delivering creative and cultural programmes and audience engagement initiatives: including with Leicester Comedy Festival, Glastonbury Festival of Performing Arts, Journeys Festival International and Liberty EU.
Sam is a seasoned fundraiser and has built income strategies that connect across public funding, private commissions, sponsorship, donations, co-productions and charitable grants.
Karen English
Festival Manager
Having been with DIFF since 2020, Karen was appointed Festival Manager in September 2023 taking responsibility for the operational delivery of all festival screenings and activities including recruiting the festival team and liaising with venue.
She has worked across the industry in several roles covering finance, operations, administration and publicity, since including with Sony Pictures where she began in 1998.
Maev Moran
Marketing Manager
Maev’s focus is on marketing the festival, building creative campaigns to excite and engage new and returning audiences.
Maev joined DIFF in 2024, returning to Dublin from the UK with 7+ years’ experience in marketing and communications across arts, higher education and non-profit sectors, working with organisations including Bristol Old Vic Theatre, Curzon Cinema & Arts, FilmBath, and the University of Bristol.
Combined with freelance work, her diverse experience spans live theatre, live music and circus arts, film exhibition, sustainability, mental health, and community engagement.
Maev holds a passion for connecting audiences with unforgettable cultural experiences, and an abiding love of film, at the core of her work. She specialises in campaign planning and project management, design and content creation, brand development, and audience development.
Peggy Mac Hale
Programmer
Peggy works alongside Grainne to programme the festival and runs our outreach programmes both in and out of the festival period.
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She first joined DIFF as a Junior Programmer in 2023 and ran the industry and events programme for the 2025 festival.
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Her background is in Film Studies & Contemporary English Literature and she has been heavily involved in student and amateur short film production, as well as festival production.
Carole Lakes
Accounts Officer
Carole is a Chartered Accountant working for many years in the Retail Sector including Switzers and Brown Thomas. She started working in the Arts Sector joining the Dublin Fringe Festival in May 2019 and the Dublin International Film Festival in December 2019.
SHORTS PROGRAMMERS
Aisha Bolaji
Shorts Programmer
Aisha Bolaji is a Nigerian-Irish curator, screenwriter, director and co-founder of The GALPAL Collective. Their work blends the fantastical with deeply human stories. Their short Why the Sun & Moon Live in the Sky premiered at the Galway Film Fleadh, earning a Bingham Ray New Talent Award nomination, with screenings at Cork, Kerry, Aesthetica, and BlackStar. Their feature screenplay Welcome to the Plague Pit was selected for Stowe Story Labs and Storyhouse Labs. Their next short Starlets is Screen Ireland funded through Focus Shorts. Aisha has received development funding from TG4’s CEIM EILE scheme (Tír na nÓg) and Screen Ireland’s Perspectives scheme (Ololufé). Aisha has over seven years’ experience curating, programming and doing jury for various Irish festivals and events (IFI DocFest, Catalyst, IFTA, PhizzFest, Directed by YOUth, AJOYO etc.).
Aisha has been programming shorts at Dublin International Film Festival for four years and serves as The GALPAL Collective's Directed by Her festival director. They actively promote diverse voices in Irish film through their community focused curatorial practice.
Penn Bálint
Shorts Programmer
Penn Bálint (they/he) is a Hungarian multimedia artist and curator based in Devon, UK. They studied Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, focusing on Aesthetics, and their work often explores disability, queerness, and cultural hybridity through a surrealist lens.
In theatre, they have directed for the Howard Theatre, ADC Theatre, and Curve Theatre, and have created work for Exeter Fringe Festival. As a visual artist, they have illustrated for The Guardian, Northcott Theatre, and Dartmoor National Park. Their filmmaking has been supported by commissions and screened at BFI Flare, Aesthetica, and festivals across Europe.
Penn began developing their current musical comedy short through the BFI New Voices programme in 2023, where they took on the roles of composer, writer, and director. The film is now in production.
They have served as a judge and curator for Two Short Nights and Edinburgh Short Film Festival, and run a DIY collective called The Yoko Situation, focused on building a network of queer creatives in rural Devon and telling Hungarian LGBTQIA+ stories currently under political censorship.
Pia Roycroft
Shorts Programmer
Pia has worked with the Dublin International Film Festival for the last two years as a screener, alongside having written for film related publications like Film Ireland and the Young Irish Critics, and curating programmes for festivals like the PRISMA Queer Film Festival.
A self-proclaimed horror and machinima connoisseur, Pia is delighted to bring their niche expertise and experience to DIFF once again.
