Smirsh Films
Colum Stapleton has been making documentaries since 1994. His company SMIRSH Ltd is based at The Gyreum, an Eco/Arts Centre he designed and built overlooking Lough Arrow
Contact: | Colum Stapleton |
E-mail: | baeton@gmail.com |
Web: | www.gyreum.com |
TEAMHAIR / TARA 52’ 2008 TG4/ BAI 52’
Exploration with use of old movie archive and CGI of how the myth of Tara as a royal and sacred “capital” of Ireland came about. Stars a controversial motorway called M3.
Director/ Exec Producer: Colum Stapleton, Producer: David Rane, Line Producer: Sinead Dolan, DOP Fergal Ward & Colm Hogan, Editor: Tadhg O’Sullivan

Trick of the Lights
EDIFACE 2010 VEC Sligo Leitrim Arts and Education 20’
oblique exploration of the psyche of the magnolia of the Celtic Tiger planning and living.
Directed/ Producer: Colum Stapleton Camera: Hector Castellas Editor Tadhg O’Sullivan,
TRICK OF THE LIGHT 28’
Director + Co-Producer IFB/Westnorsk Film Fondet/ Norsk Film Fondet
tvfinternational.com/programme/100/trick-of-the-light
EMPIRE OF JURAMIDAM 52’ + 70’
IFB/ NIFC Director/ Producer
exploration of the Santo Daime Church in Brazil, Christianity’s strangest offspring. Their faith guarantees an encounter with the Divine, through ingesting an hallucinogenic tea. Won best documentary at Green Cine Festival in San Francisco 2005
www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=125451
tvfinternational.com/programme/100/empire-of-juramidam
ireland.onlinefilm.org/en_EN/film/34422
TELL ME CAPTAIN STRANGE 2001 IFB/RTE 52’
UFOs are not simply the product of the imaginations of the desert states of USA, but hover and dash with frequency across the dreary grey skies of Ireland, so say a plethora of witnesses from very different backgrounds and from all corners of Ireland.
That there are UFOs flying over Ireland is a claim that requires extraordinary proof. Weaving round these myriad sightings is one man from Roscommon who is determined to use sophisticated optical devices to prove that these craft exist. Attempts are made to imagine who owns these craft and who might be captaining them.
“full of highly plausible stuff”
Declan Lynch, THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT Viewable by start of July 2012
HOLY HIJACKER SEEKING THE 3RD SECRET OF FATIMA RTE/SBS Australia/ IFB
How one Australian hijacked an Aer Lingus plane to find out the world’s best kept secret. At the time the most watched documentary ever on RTE1.
tvfinternational.com/programme/18/the-pope-and-the-third-secret-of-fatima
ireland.onlinefilm.org/en_EN/film/34416
SAI BABA STRANGE AVATAR 1995 52’ + 70’
IFB/RTE/TSI Switzerland/FAB Berlin/ Arts Council of Ireland
an exploration of a child who decided to be God and convinced millions