Carol Murphy is an artist, screenwriter, filmmaker, copywriter, and performer based in Belfast. She is currently writing the 3rd draft of her horror science fiction thriller feature The Silent Tide, about the industrial fishing of mermaids, with Fantastic Films in Dublin, funded by NI Screen and Screen Ireland.

Murphy is also a mentee on Screen Ireland’s 2025 Mentoring Scheme. Her mentor is Ali Doyle, the Head of Development at New Grange Pictures and previously the Development Producer on Kneecap.

Murphy finished her feature script Golden Boy, set in the illegal gay scene in Belfast in the 1970’s, in 2016, having previously attended The Binger Filmlab and The Turino Filmlab with it. In 2018 she completed the First Draft & Beyond screenwriter’s lab, run by Screen Training Ireland, with a feature period drama script, now complete, called Sailortown. She has another horror feature called Undeadable.

In 2021 Murphy wrote, performed, and created The Body & Blood, a story told, in verse, about a folk famine anti-hero called The Vigilante Cannibal Nun as a series of performance films, that she shot on her mobile phone and launched online in January 2022 after an online video campaign. The first live one-woman performance was at The Black Box in Belfast in May 2022. In 2023 she performed The Body & Blood at VAULT Festival in London before performing it at The Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival; The Open House Festival at The Courthouse in Bangor; The Lyric Lounge in Belfast and at Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin. Murphy then created a body of songs about The Vigilante Cannibal Nun that she performs live around Belfast. In September 2024 she launched The Vigilante Cannibal Nun as Agony Aunt comedy horror podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. She is currently working on another performance piece called Hustlers, Bastards & Donkeys.

From 2015 to 2022 Murphy worked in production and buying roles for film and TV, including two seasons of Game of Thrones, Star Wars, Venom 2, The Northman, Dungeons & Dragons, and World on Fire. She also taught creative workshops at Queens Open Learning; Queens Architecture, Queens Film Studies, University of Ulster Media Studies, the University of Westminster and at Queens Film Theatre, Belfast.

In 2012 she completed a residency at Digital Arts Studios where she made a body of fashion films. In 2011 Murphy wrote and produced Finbar’s Private Netherland for the Pick N Mix Theatre Festival at the Mac in Belfast

After attending the 2006 Berlinale Talent Campus, Murphy wrote, directed, and produced numerous shorts, many of which were internationally co-produced with French producer, Jennifer Sabbah. Mustard premiered at The European Film Festival in Munich in 2007. She attended the Rutger Hauer Filmfactory in Rotterdam, making two more shorts. Nightclubbing won the RTÉ/Filmbase Short Film Award and the Ille De France Finishing Fund 2009; The Dissenter, was funded by NI Screen; Painkiller is part of the Collabor8te 2013 slate run by Rankin Film & TV and was long-listed for a BAFTA.

Murphy studied Fine Art Painting at the University of Northumbria, and video installation on residency at Ateliers ’63 in Amsterdam and exhibited in Europe. An MA in Film Theory; work in radio at BBC London and film journalism for magazines such as Film Ireland, Flux Magazine and Filmwaves brought her on the road to short film production. Murphy produced the short films Automaton and Tell it to the Fishes starring Dylan Moran and Gerry McSorley. She production managed Anja Kirschner’s Polly II: Plan for Revolution in Docklands. She also established and performed in a band called California Roll, writing songs, singing, and playing the fiddle.

ENDORSEMENTS

An astonishingly original piece of work performed with verve and humour by the creator. A rollercoaster ride through the story of a vigilante cannibal nun who embodies the suppressed rage and trauma of a people - leavened with sly humour and music. This work could only have come out of Belfast - and the mind of Carol Murphy. Not to be missed. MARY KATE O’FLANAGAN

Carol is a brilliantly original, visually led screenwriter who feeds off her fine art roots to develop scripts that are driven by seductive and emotionally difficult, but oftentimes funny, charismatic and dark central characters and ideas. BRENDAN MCCARTHY, FANTASTIC FILMS

Gripping Stage Presence has you hooked from start to finish. THEATRE & TONIC ****

Murphy is a whirlwind of a performer. FAIRY POWERED PRO****