Simon Fitzmaurice

Simon Fitzmaurice is an award-winning writer and film director. His films have screened at film festivals all over the world and won prizes at home and abroad. His feature film My Name is Emily won Best Cinematography at the Galway Film Fleadh, the Youth Film Award at Internationales Filmfestival Schlingel, the Newport Beach Achievement Award for Acting, the Victoria Texas Festival Jury Prize for Best Actress and was also nominated for 8 IFTAs. The London Screenwriter's festival presented Simon with a lifetime achievement award for the film. The prestigious inaugural award comes with the title 'The F*cking Awesome Award' 2016. A graduate of the School of Media at DIT, Simon was conferred with an Honorary Doctorate in November 2016. Simon's short fiction has been shortlisted for the Hennessy Literary Award and his poetry has appeared in the quarterly publication West 47. Simon recently wrote a memoir called It's Not Yet Dark, which was a number one bestseller in Ireland. Simon writes regularly for The Irish Times. He lives in Greystones with his wife Ruth, their five children, Jack, Raife, Arden, Sadie and Hunter. Shortly after his second short film The Sound of People premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008, director Simon Fitzmaurice was diagnosed with Motor Neuron Disease (ALS), the debilitating disease for which the viral ice-bucket challenge raised awareness for in September 2014. Now completely paralysed, Fitzmaurice typed the script for the feature film, My Name is Emily, through the movement of his eyes and iris recognition software, Eye Gaze. This is also how he communicated to direct the film across its five week shoot in August and September 2014. Simon's memoir has recently been adapted into a feature length documentary It's Not Yet Dark which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 2017 and is narrated by Colin Farrell.