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35 Years · All Genres

Filmography

A career spanning documentary, drama, short film, installation, and commercial work. From Cork Film Festival in 1988 to the UN General Assembly in 2024. Click any film with a play button to watch.

Current Projects

Everybody Knows 2025 Feature Documentary Global resistance to genocide in Gaza through the lens of Irish post-colonial identity. Post-production.
Boots on Backwards 2025– Feature Documentary Colombia's false positives scandal. Theatre of the Oppressed methodology. In development.

The Portlaoise Decade · 1999–2009

Walls Behind Walls 2008 Installation Large-scale video installation from the Portlaoise Prison oral history project.
Recoil 2006 Short Film Dir. Billy McCannon. Prod. Jonathan Cummins. Starring Keith McErlean.
Inside Portlaoise 1999–2009 Documentary Series Participatory oral history with former combatants. Digital cinema studio built inside the prison.

Short Films & Drama

One More Shot — Part 1 1996 Short Film Amulet Films. Starring Michael West & Tina Kellegher. Selected for first IFB Short Cuts series. ▶ Watch
One More Shot — Part 2 1996 Short Film Continuation. IFB Short Cuts series. ▶ Watch
There's A Hole In The Ozone Layer Just Above Clonboo 1990 Short Drama Little Bird Production. Starring Rachael Dowling & Vinny Murphy. International broadcast & cinema distribution. ▶ Watch
That's All Right 1988 Short Film Debut short. Premiered Cork Film Festival 1988. ▶ Watch
Mick Lally Live At The Works 1990s Documentary Live performance documentary. Amulet Studios. ▶ Watch

Script Development & Other Work

Going to Eldorado 1996 Feature Script SOURCE selection. Developed with Czech screenwriter Jan Fleischer.
Twinbrook Murals 1990s Documentary Community documentary. Belfast.
Art in Conflict 1990s Documentary Art and political violence. Northern Ireland.
Night Out 1990s Short Film Amulet Studios.
Out Past Venus 1990s Short Film Amulet Studios.

Billy
McCannon

Director · Amulet Studios · Dublin

Billy McCannon has been making films since the late 1980s. He is Director of Amulet Studios and a member of the Directors Guild of Ireland. His work spans documentary, drama, short film, large-scale installation, and commercial production.

A founding member of Film Base, he chaired the organisation during the successful campaign to establish the Irish Film Board, and helped build SIPTU's Action Committee and Film Base's professional training programmes — structures that enabled independent Irish film production to grow.

His decade inside Portlaoise Prison (1999–2009) building a participatory oral history project with former combatants remains the ethical foundation for everything that followed: the principle that documentary must be earned through sustained relationship, not extracted.