Imelda O’Reilly is a Irish born international filmmaker, poet and film scholar. Her published works include plays, poems, and fiction. As a filmmaker she has written and directed eight award-winning short films that have played internationally at over a hundred film festivals. Most recently, a short documentary film titled Tumbling Towards Home, winning a Director’s Choice Award from the Thomas Edison Black Maria Film Festival. Her Moroccan film Bricks, Beds and Sheep’s Heads was a regional finalist for the Student Academy Awards in 2007. Her feature length screenplay titled We’re the Kids in America was an official selection for L’Atélier Cinéfondation, that is part of the Cannes International Film Festival in 2018. Imelda was a commissioned writer on Song for New York with Mabou Mines. This piece was developed through the Sundance Theater Lab. Most recently Song For New York was included in Mabou Mines 50th anniversary celebration. She just completed a short narrative film titled Suspicious Minds filmed on location in Hudson, NY at the Catwalk Art Residency.

O’Reilly is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to Morocco in 2007. Other grants include a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, CUNY, CLEA, Mary Redman Foundation and a residencies at Mabou Mines, Cill Rialaig to name a few. Her poetry was published by Lothlorien Poetry, Galway Literary Review, Lapwing Press, Prompt Press and her fiction appears in Shenanigans published by Sceptre in the UK. Most recently, she has been a featured poet with Composer’s Concordance at Birdland, The Players Theater alongside Suzanne Vega, The Bitter End and the Queens New Music Festival.

She graduated from Columbia University with honors and has an MFA in film. Imelda is an Associate Professor at James Madison University. Prior to JMU Imelda was an Assistant Professor at NYU’s Graduate Film Program, TischAsia located in Singapore.