The acclaimed documentary Katie is the standout pick among another programme of interesting documentaries screening at the Irish Film Institute’s annual Documentary Festival. The festival will run this September from Wednesday 26th to Sunday 30th, and Katie director Ross Whitaker will be in attendance after his film’s showing on the Saturday for a Q&A session with the audience.
Under the direction of by Whitaker, Katie follows the champion boxer Katie Taylor as she attempts to rebuild her career after a year of turmoil that threatened to derail her career.
Katie Taylor has won six amateur European championships, five world amateur championships and is an Olympic Gold Medal winner from the London 2012 Olympic Games. She turned professional after a disastrous campaign at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, which saw her crash out in the first round despite being favourite to win. The film unravels the deeply personal reasons behind the career low and shows the champions grit and determination to start over as a professional. Taylor won her first world title within a year and became the first woman in history to headline her own Sky Sports show. She added the IBF title to her WBA crown and is now one of only seven professional women boxers to hold unified titles across the different weight divisions in the sport. The documentary had its Irish premiere earlier this summer at the Galway Film Fleadh, winning the festival’s award for Best Irish Feature Documentary and now it makes its eagerly awaited debut in Dublin at the IFI DocFest.
The IFI Documentary Festival is loaded with plenty of interesting films from Ireland and abroad, including a spot specifically for Irish shorts to provide bite-sized insights from Irish filmmakers. With audiences changing and the potential for more eyes on documentaries than ever before, the panel discussion on Documentary Making In Ireland Today is sure to be a revelatory afternoon, where Irish and international speakers will discuss the challenges and successes they have experienced in getting documentaries made.
A full list of the documentaries showing during the IFI Documentary Festival 2018 is listed below. Tickets for all events at the festival are available now, including a special deal of a 5 film pass for €45 from the IFI box office.
| Wednesday 26th September | Time |
| Minding the Gap | 8:00pm |
| Thursday 27th September | Time |
| The Life After | 6:20pm |
| The Curious Works of Roger Doyle | 8:45pm |
| Friday 28th September | Time |
| Panel – Documentary Making in Ireland Today | 12:00pm |
| An Engineer Imagines | 2:00pm |
| A Woman Captured | 4:30pm |
| Saturday 29th September | Time |
| Irish Shorts Programme | 1.30pm |
| Losing Alaska | 3:40pm |
| Gurrumul | 2:30pm |
| Our New President | 5:40pm |
| Katie | 8:00pm |
| Sunday 30th September | Time |
| The Man Who Wanted to Fly | 1.30pm |
| Lovers of the Night | 3.30pm |
| The Judge | 4.00pm |
| When All Is Ruin Once Again | 5.40pm |
| Island | 6.00pm |
| The Silence of Others | 8.30pm |