Additional leadership role: Chair, Madison Screenwriting Committee

Imelda O'Reilly is an interdisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and Professor of Film at James Madison University. Born and raised in Ireland she relocated to New York to study theatre and film, earning an MFA in Directing and Screenwriting from Columbia University. Her writing spans film, fiction, theatre, and poetry. Film Ireland has described her work as having "a distinctive voice and vision," noting that, following in the footsteps of Flann O'Brien, she "reaches beyond and touches something both deep and universal while never losing her playfulness and humor."

As a director and screenwriter, O'Reilly's films and feature screenplays have appeared in the Official Selection at Cannes (2018), the Sundance Theatre Lab (2007), and the Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of the Sundance Institute (2007), as well as at Academy-qualifying festivals including the Rhode Island International Film Festival, DOC NYC, and Cinequest.

Her feature screenplay We're the Kids in America was an official selection at the Cannes International Film Festival in 2018. Her Moroccan film Bricks, Beds and Sheep's Heads, shot on a Fulbright Fellowship, was nominated for a Student Academy Award. She was a commissioned writer on Song for New York, developed through Mabou Mines, and her most recent scholarly work, "Haunting and Counter-Archive in 'We Have Just Begun,'" was published in Aster(ix) Journal.

Her films have been broadcast on Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ) and iWoman TV. Her triptych of short films — Eggs and Soldiers (2016), Tumbling Towards Home (2021), and Suspicious Minds (2023) — blends genres seamlessly, moving between Super 8 footage, animation, and live action. In total, her films have screened at over 150 festivals in fifteen countries and earned 40 awards.

Her recent work embraces feminism and new technology. Under the Wolf's Cloak, a collaborative interdisciplinary project with JMU students and faculty, reimagines Little Red Riding Hood as a feminist 360° virtual reality film. It premiered at the John C. Wells Planetarium and has since toured to New York City, the Checkout in Chicago, the University of San Diego, and the American Arts Center in Casablanca.

O'Reilly's fellowships and grants include support from the Fulbright Foundation, the Sundance Theatre Institute, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Catwalk Art Residency, the William-Cabott Foundation, the Irish Arts Council, the Mary Redmond Foundation, the Voice & Vision Retreat at Bard College, the New York Theatre Workshop residency at Vassar College, the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming, and Cill Rialaigh in Ireland.

O'Reilly is the founder and director of the JMU in New York Summer Program and has taught international film workshops at the American Arts Center in Casablanca, Morocco. From 2011 to 2014, she was an Assistant Arts Professor at NYU's Graduate Film Program in Singapore, TischAsia. She is currently a Fulbright Specialist (2024–2027) and writes, directs, and produces through her company, Faz In Ate Films.

Publications

• "Under the Wolf's Cloak," Liminalities Journal (2026, forthcoming)
• "Protection the Law Refuses to Give: Haunting and Counter-Archive in We Have Just Begun," Aster(ix) (June 2026)
• "Fez" (short story), Cassandra Voices (2024)
• Waymark (2024)
• The Galway Review (2023)
• Lothlorien Poetry Journal (2022)
• Prompt Press (2021)
• I Wake in Half Dream (poetry collection), Lapwing Press (2004)
• "Stovepipe" (short story), in Shenanigans: An Anthology of Irish Fiction, Lapwing Press (1999)

Featured interview, The Artful Mind (2025) - Imelda O'Reilly - The Artful Mind

Additional Awards & Honors

Her film and screenwriting work has also received the Director's Choice Award at the Thomas Edison Black Maria Film Festival; Best of Festival at the Broadcast Education Association; honors at WorldFest Houston; an Honorable Mention at Stowe Story Labs; a Telly Award for Directing; a Creative World Award and a Tonino Guerra Award for Screenwriting; recognition at the Seoul International Short Film Festival, the Communicator Awards, Global Shorts, the Independent Short Awards, the WRPN Women's International Film Festival, the Inwood Film Festival, and the Future of Film Awards. In 2024, IndieCork gave her a Special Mention for Best Emerging Female Director for "the highly imaginative way the director approaches story."

Professional Associations

BAFTA | European Film Academy |  Broadcast Education Association

JMU in New York Program- Founder and Director, 2017–present

This award-winning study abroad program, based in New York City, gives students three weeks to write, direct, shoot, and edit a short narrative film. Participants work alongside industry professionals — including actors, a cinematographer, and an editor — and have the opportunity to pursue an internship. The program helps students develop their unique voice and vision and find their footing in the industry.

JMU in New York SIZZLE REEL – (2026)