With great excitement, the National Talent Academy for Film & TV Drama and Ardán present the six selected candidates/teams that will pitch at the FÍS TV Summit in February 2025.
FÍS TV Summit 2025 will take place in the Radison Red Galway on Thursday February 6th with The Penguin Showrunner Lauren LeFranc as the 2025 headliner, as well as other great panels.
The six selected finalists will take part in a Pitching Workshop led by Michael Zam, leading up to the final Live Pitch to the FÍS audience on February 6th.
The FÍS TV Summit industry audience will hear the six teams’ five-minute pitches for their proposed TV series and a panel of industry experts will award a €1,000 prize to the best pitch. The winners will be announced later in the evening at the Networking Session after the FÍS TV Summit.
The pitching event finalists and their proposed TV series are (in alphabetical order):
1. Jordan Murshed - It Takes Two
Millie and her partner Lucas are unexpectedly forced to give up the apartment they’ve been 'housesitting', and move back into Lucas’s family home temporarily, but realise they may be stuck here far longer than they first anticipated.
2. Niamh O'Connor - Mapping Keira
When a dormant serial killer is linked to a new victim, a detective obsessed with catching him puts her own daughter at risk to track him down — using geo-profiling techniques.
3. Rachael O'Kane & Katie Murphy - Surviving 22
Roisin navigates grief during her thriving twenties in the aftermath of her brother’s suicide, as she tries to piece her heart and family back together (badly).
4. Samuel Jay Patrick & Oran Fitzpatrick - Diving
A young photographer dives into Dublin’s ‘80s rock scene aspiring to turn his passion into a profession. Yet to keep his dream alive he must become a ruthless manager, risking losing the family he found in a fractured band.
5. Sarah-Jane Scott - Unleashed
Everyday superwoman and single mam Corina and her true crime obsessed, rich glam-mam BFF Ann Marie, have been singlehandedly keeping their respective shit shows on the road for way too long, and have finally had enough.
6. Sheena Lambert - Billy & Kick
The story of how the tragic romance between JFK’s favourite sister, Kathleen Kennedy, and William Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington almost destroyed the entire Kennedy political dynasty and brought one of England’s oldest aristocracies to its knees.
Further Information:
The most recent winner of the FÍS TV Summit Pitching Competition was Patricia Kelly with Humdrum, which told the story of a freelance court-stenographer, whose life is in the toilet, and starts to interfere in the cases she transcribes to try to bring justice, but quickly loses sight of what’s right and what’s very wrong.
The 2020 FÍS TV Summit Pitching Competition was won by the team made up of Ray Lawlor, Oonagh Kearney & Paddy Hayes who pitched their show Obituary, about a small-town obituarist who resorts to murder when work dries up locally. In the audience that year was Laurent Boissel (APC Studios) who loved the idea and signed on as executive producer alongside Paddy Hayes for the show which was shot in Donegal in 2023 and broadcast on RTÉ. It is now in production for its second season.
For those hoping to attend the event - early-bird tickets for FÍS TV Summit 2025 went quickly over Christmas, but there'll be another round of tickets available later this week with the next panel announcement so keep an eye out on Ardán’s socials.
About Michael Zam
MICHAEL ZAM is a screenwriter, television writer, playwright/librettist, and professor. He was co-creator, writer and co-producer on the FX miniseries, Feud: Bette & Joan, which was nominated for 18 Emmy's, including two for Zam, and which was based on his Black-Listed screenplay, Best Actress. Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon starred in the 2017 series. He has TV series in development with Apple, TNT, MRC, Fremantle, 7 Stories, and Fox 21, and is presently writing a new limited series for Oscar-winning director, Paolo Sorrentino. He wrote the book to Off-Broadway musical The Kid, based on Dan Savage’s memoir, for which he won the Outer Critics Circle, BMI’s Jerry Bock Award, and the Jonathan Larson Prize, and was nominated for Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, and GLAAD Media Awards. He teaches screenwriting, television writing and film and theater studies at NYU, and has twice been given his department’s Award for Teaching Excellence. Since 1999 Michael has been leading a sold-old program in London on British Theatre.
The National Talent Academy Film & TV is an initiative of Screen Ireland. The NTA for Film & TV is managed by Ardán.