About

I’m a filmmaker: director, producer and writer from Naarm (Melbourne), and I have spent years in Ireland making creative documentaries, TV series, docu-dramas and immersive media. I have also directed many hours of prime-time television, popular factual series, documentaries and docu-dramas telling compelling stories in creative and innovative ways.

I returned to Ireland from the diaspora in the nineties, learning the Irish language as an adult: a formative experience that has inspired much of my work. Producing under the moniker Saoi Media, my films have been exhibited at festivals and cultural events all over the world and I have collaborated with some amazing people to bring their art, their words and their stories to the screen.

Saoi, pronounced ‘see’, means wise one, or the head of monastic or poetic school in Irish, a position of high esteem in Ireland, past and present. Despite the fact most people can’t pronounce it, and that it might seem presumptuous to claim the word, it felt fitting because of my passion for exploring ways of translating poetry into film, predominantly in the medium of Irish. Being a Kehoe and a Daly with bona fide bardic ancestry, I gave myself permission, and like a powerful word-spell should, it gave me great courage and inspiration.

Along with awards and nominations for Deargdhúil: Anatomy of Passion and Síolscéalta (Seedstories) and many more - An Dubh in a Gheal: Assimilation is the only TG4 commissioned documentary to win the prestigious Radharc Award for excellence in social documentary. More recently in 2023, An Diabhal Inti (The Devil’s in Her), a collaboration with Lagan Media Productions, was nominated for best documentary series by the Royal Television Society.

All produced, in part or in full, in the Conamara Gaeltacht (Irish speaking area). The VR immersive poem that won over the European judges in the final presentation for Galway’s successful campaign for European Capital of Culture in 2020, was imagined and created not in a commercial studio, but in a rural cottage. As the first immersive experience of its kind, it played a pivotal role in securing the designation. Cottage industries are… or were an important part of the screen production eco-system in the west of Ireland. We could spin gold out of flax.

I have travelled and traced the lines and layers of emigration, my own and my ancestors so often, that moving between the two worlds is the defining rhythm of my life. I’m back in my hometown of Naarm, developing and exploring new projects, bringing with me all I have learned on an extraordinary journey telling stories at the edge of the western world.

Member of the Screen Director’s Guild Ireland.

Contact: paulamkehoe@gmail.com