‘Hollow Trees’ wins Best Irish Independent award at Galway Film Fleadh

The post-apocalyptic, entirely self-funded horror film was a labour of love, written and directed by Cathal, inspired by his proof-of-concept short film, ‘A Hollow Tree’ (2021), which won the Royal Television Society Award for Best Drama and reached millions of viewers online.

Sending a film into the world is daunting, as you never know how it will be received, but Cathal needn’t have worried as ‘Hollow Trees’ proved to be a huge success at the 2026 Galway Film Fleadh, winning the Best Irish Independent Film Award.

It tells the story of Kent (Tom Kerrisk) and a young boy, Danny (Louis Kirwan), survivors of a war that years earlier wiped out 50 percent of the world’s population, and their struggle to survive in the harsh environment. On a scavenging mission, Kent finds himself face to face with a new threat: a strange creature (skinwalker) capable of imitating humans.

“The whole skinwalker idea was sort of just from internet popularity,” Cathal explained. “I loved the lore of it myself and was always a fan of creepypastas and stuff.”

For the uninitiated, skinwalker originates from Navajo folklore as a type of malevolent shapeshifter that can move at supernatural speed, mimic human and animal voices and take the form of either, inspiring numerous books and films.

Creepypastas are basically horror-related stories that are shared widely on the internet, usually through short form content that began in the mid-2000s, with 4chan website the first major source.

‘Hollow Trees’, as an Independent film with no studio involvement, couldn’t have come at a better time, with Indie Horror ruling the zeitgeist in the form of two films released this year - ‘Backrooms’ and ‘Obsession’. Both are by young directors who found their way to the big screen through their YouTube channels. ‘Obsession’ was made on a budget of just $750k yet earned over $300 million, while ‘Backrooms’, made by 20-year-old filmmaker, Kane Parsons, was based on his creepypasta lineal spaces concept which he turned into a web horror series, leading to the film that has sent younger audiences, in particular, to the cinema in droves.

As such, it seems Cathal is part of a movement shifting away from traditional genres and methods, whereby independent filmmakers can break through.

“I wrote the proof-of-concept for my dissertation in university and then put it on YouTube and it's on four and a half million views. I made the film in August of 2025 and now ‘Obsession’ and ‘Backrooms’ have come out.

“We only had £9k for ‘Hollow Trees’. That was our budget. But to make that it was two years of tarring roads and saving money.

“I think horror is finally getting the respect it deserves as well. People are really seeing it as a proper genre of film.”

Cathal hasn’t set out his niche yet in film-making however.

“I'm a huge horror fan, but I suppose I dabble in a lot of different things,” he said. “I've written a comedy, I've written a sort of war epic, all genres really. I suppose when you're a young filmmaker you're sort of trying to find your calling and so you feel like you can do anything. The war epic was supposed to be a dark comedy, which turned into a drama. Just from writing it you sort of see yourself which direction it's going. But I think that's the best thing about film; you really can just make anything you want.”

As for ‘Hollow Trees’, finding a talented cast as passionate as Cathal about the film was crucial, but he says the lead role was always going to be Kerrisk, who played the lead in the short film and was also in ‘An Taische’, the first ever Irish language horror by Cathal’s friend and collaborator, acclaimed Warrenpoint-based filmmaker John Farrelly.

“Then my cousin played Danny, the young boy in the short film. He grew up, obviously, so I couldn't cast him. We auditioned around seven young boys and Louis Carlin was just so good. He had really good improvisational skills. It was the same with Rosie Hayes, she plays Amelia, and Colin Malone who plays the creature and the priest.”

Made on a shoestring budget in just two weeks, with a total of 10 cast and crew, organisation is key.

“You really have to think about where you're going to be, what day, how long you're going to be there for and how long the scene's going to take,” he added. But Cathal couldn’t have been better placed in a rural, but very much Irish, landscape.

“The furthest we drove was 40 minutes outside of Hilltown to the Guildford Mill. Everything else was close to home. The Mourne Mountains and all the forestry there is the perfect place for any type of film. This was obviously post-apocalyptic and everything was supposed to be very isolated and abandoned. You have everything you need.”

Having the World Premier at the Galway Film Fleadh, Cathal now hopes for an International premier in the USA.

“From the short film, the majority of my audience comes from America,” he explained.

The hope is that festivals like Newport Beach in Los Angeles, Big Apple in New York, and Vancouver and Toronto in Canada will take it on.

“Already, from the Galway Film Fleadh, a few people have reached out to me about distribution. I haven't really made my mind up on it yet because I want to wait until I get it over to America. It might raise a few eyebrows over there. That's the plan anyway.”

Cathal went to school in St Marks HS, Warrenpoint, and then studied Cinematic Arts in the University of Ulster, but he knew he wanted to be in a creative field long before that.

“I originally wanted to be an animator for Pixar. When I was like five, I said I wanted to work for them. And very oddly, my granddad knew a guy who knew a guy who worked for them. When I was 11, they sent me an email, just like a friendly hello, saying, ‘we hear you want to work for us?’. It blew me away when I was 11. I went to tech before university and told my teacher there about animation. She said, ‘would you want to try film-making?’ So I made a short film and fell in love with the idea of directing.”

And along with Cathal and John there is more local talent, as Crossgar writer/director Peter Young also won the Bingham Ray New Talent Award in Galway for his film, ‘Our House’.

“Now is the best time to be doing what myself and John and Peter are doing really. Long live independent film.”