For the past year, the Firehouse Film Contest has been providing a platform for amateur Irish film makers with its monthly competition-based screenings.

"We thought it would be cool if there was no barrier to entry; that anyone of any age can enter, as long as you fit our criteria of being under five minutes and on theme," says Conor Barry, one of the three organisers.

The result of this initiative has been a year’s worth of entertaining and impressive submissions, always made on a shoestring budget in the space of a month. The films are then screened on the third Thursday of each month.

Simon Mulholland and Conor O'Toole constitute the rest of the founding team. The trio have backgrounds in comedy as well as a solid grounding in film, photography and graphic design.

The screening room atmosphere doesn’t fulfil the snarky directorial stereotype – feedback is open-minded and helps to build collaborations. Audience participation determines the winner of the Best Film award each month, which was recently claimed by a 15-year-old. Another recent Firehouse entant, director Jon Hozier-Byrne, made it to the Cannes Film Festival in May (and yes, he is the brother of that other chap).

The competition began life at Mart in Rathmines before moving to Filmbase. It is homeless again as of next week, but the organisers are determined to continue in 2015. The third venue’s the charm.

The 12th Firehouse Film Contest takes place on January 20th in Filmbase, Dublin. See facebook.com/firehousefilm

Emily Longworth