Sinéad McDevitt

Sinéad McDevitt is a Sydney-based director with an award-winning background in art direction and design. Originally hailing from Dublin, her belief is that film has the power to cut through the barriers that divide us and shoot straight to the imagination. The best stories stick and refuse to budge. They pull us in with a visually delicious magnet and hold us there, hinting that we’re far from alone in our human idiosyncrasies. In 2017/2018, Sinéad was awarded placement at Oscar-nominated company FINCH as part of the inaugural ‘Gender Matters’ initiative by Screen Australia and the ADG (Australian Director’s Guild). Her focus is on crafting finely-tuned and visually compelling stories with heart; short films and commercials that infuse her distinctive pared-back design aesthetic into the DNA of the world she’s bringing to life. Since graduating from AFTRS in Dec 2014, Sinéad has directed multiple short-form pieces; both narrative and non-fiction. Short film Ballsy has screened on the international film festival circuit with nominations for Best Documentary at Sheffield Doc/Fest, the Academy-accredited Flickerfest and Fastnet Film Festival. Juxtaposing fly-on-the-wall cinematography with designed overhead stop- motion sequences, Ballsy aims to contrast the darkness of the hero’s reality with moments of brighter hope. Alongside the premiere of Ballsy, Sinéad won the prestigious KB Myer award for multiplatform series The Alchemy Project, which went on to be selected for the digital marketplace at Sheffield Doc/Fest. Her second short film How to fall in love with a stranger – inspired by a famous 1996 psychology experiment on empathy and filmed in a Wes Anderson-esque, dimly lit ‘lab’– premiered at TEDxSydney and was published by The Guardian and The Sydney Morning Herald, with features on live TV and radio. Sinéad followed this with the development of TV series The Love Experiment, based on the film. Working with Media Stockade, the series was selected for FACTory at the AIDC. Other milestones have included mini musical Edie landing in the top five finalists for the ABC’s Girls series; two short docs for BBC World; and a number of commercials drawing heavily upon her design background including the most recent – a minimalist colour/neon tribute to Monty Python, The New Fit, for Rebel. Sinéad also just created the first original short film series for TED Talks, collaborating with filmmaking teams in London (Mother), Edinburgh (BAFTA-winning director Duncan Cowles), NYC (SpecialGuest) and LA (Shane Griffin). The films premiered live onstage at TED2018 in Vancouver.