Adaptation Film Festival 2026

Adaptation is the annual film festival run by Cinema North West, the Bandit Films-operated touring cinema network covering the Sligo-Leitrim-Roscommon (SLR) region. The 2026 edition runs Wednesday 16 to Sunday 20 September across seven venues in the three counties, with The Barracks in Dromahair the festival’s lead Leitrim venue.

What to Expect

The festival mixes new Irish and international feature screenings with filmmaker talks, Q&As, hands-on workshops and a networking evening for people working in film across the region. In Leitrim, screenings also run at The Glens Centre in Manorhamilton and The Island Theatre in Ballinamore, alongside The Model Cinema in Sligo town, The Art Deco in Ballymote, and Roscommon Arts Centre and Boyle Family Resource Centre in Roscommon. The previous edition, in September 2025, built its programme around the filmmaker Neil Jordan, screening The Crying Game, The Butcher Boy and The Company of Wolves alongside an on-stage conversation with Dr Keith Hopper, six short films made in the SLR region, and workshops on costume design, screenwriting and editing. Outside festival week, the same network tours a rotating programme through these venues across the rest of the year: titles that screened through Dromahair, Ballinamore and Manorhamilton earlier in 2026 included Christy, Sanatorium, Báite and TRAD, alongside the documentary Once Upon a Time in Cinema, bringing festival and independent titles to the region that would not otherwise reach a screen this far from Dublin or Galway.

Good to Know

• Dates: Wednesday 16 to Sunday 20 September 2026, across venues in Leitrim, Sligo and Roscommon
• Leitrim venues: The Barracks (Dromahair), The Glens Centre (Manorhamilton), The Island Theatre (Ballinamore)
• Format: feature screenings, filmmaker talks and Q&As, practical workshops, and a networking event for regional filmmakers
• Booking: through cinemanorthwest.ie, the 2025 edition charged €10 per screening or event (€8 concession), €30 per workshop, or €40 for a season ticket covering screenings but not workshops
• Organiser: Cinema North West, run by Bandit Films
• Recurrence: annual, held every September since at least 2022

Getting There

Dromahair is a small village between Manorhamilton and Sligo town, about 20 minutes’ drive from Carrick-on-Shannon and a similar distance from Sligo. Manorhamilton and Ballinamore, the other two Leitrim festival venues, are within 30 to 40 minutes of Dromahair by car, so a visitor based anywhere in north Leitrim can realistically take in more than one venue across festival week.