
Directing
Orla Smith
Orla is a filmmaker based in London who documents her life, using filmmaking as a form of therapy to varying degrees of success. She also produces nonfiction and “live cinema”, and co-founded the documentary festival The Creative Nonfiction Film Weekend (CNFW).
Acting credits
NRIn an effort to continue using filmmaking as exposure therapy (after conquering her fear of the Tube in Tube Film), filmmaker Orla Smith tackles an even bigger fear: planes. On a trip to Porto, the camera is wielded as a shield against panic attacks. But this time, things don’t go exactly to plan.
Plane Film
2026
NRA young woman rediscovers a letter from an old friend, forcing her to reconcile with the past.
Papercut
2022
5.0A short film about communication in the time of social isolation.
Checking In
2020
NROrla goes on the tube.
Tube Film
2025
Behind the camera
NRIn an effort to continue using filmmaking as exposure therapy (after conquering her fear of the Tube in Tube Film), filmmaker Orla Smith tackles an even bigger fear: planes. On a trip to Porto, the camera is wielded as a shield against panic attacks. But this time, things don’t go exactly to plan.
Plane Film
2026
NRIn an effort to continue using filmmaking as exposure therapy (after conquering her fear of the Tube in Tube Film), filmmaker Orla Smith tackles an even bigger fear: planes. On a trip to Porto, the camera is wielded as a shield against panic attacks. But this time, things don’t go exactly to plan.
Plane Film
2026
NRSet in a world where human beings are digitally uploading their consciousness, it is GIRL’s turn to make her decision. Will she decide to join her family and leave her physicality behind, as well as the relics of what it once meant to be human?
Goodbye, World
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NRA young woman rediscovers a letter from an old friend, forcing her to reconcile with the past.
Papercut
2022
NRA young woman rediscovers a letter from an old friend, forcing her to reconcile with the past.
Papercut
2022
NRA young woman rediscovers a letter from an old friend, forcing her to reconcile with the past.
Papercut
2022
5.0A short film about communication in the time of social isolation.
Checking In
2020
NROrla goes on the tube.
Tube Film
2025
NROrla goes on the tube.
Tube Film
2025
NRI went to Edinburgh last summer and, in retrospect, realised it was the happiest I was all year. So I went back to Edinburgh at New Year's and attempted to reconstruct the experience through film.
Edinburgh '25
2026
NRBurden of Other People’s Dreams is an attempt to cross the experience of reading a book with the experience of watching a film. Created by renowned film editor Joe Bini (Grizzly Man, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, You Were Never Really Here), the piece explores the psychology of anonymity required in being an editor. Combining words and imagery, physical and digital media, it blurs the lines between fiction and non-fiction to tell a story about how stories are told.
Burden of Other People's Dreams
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A surreal, abstract memoir of Joe Bini's life as a film editor and storyteller, presented as a live cinema experience for one audience member at a time.
Burden of Other People's Dreams: Chapter One – Ganymede
2026