Paper Owl Films Appoints New Head of Production

Belfast-based independent producer Paper Owl Films has appointed a new Head of Production, Nora Keely, with support from the UK Global Screen Fund – financed by the UK Government’s Department for Culture, Media & Sport and administered by the BFI. In her new role Nora will oversee all productions at Paper Owl, strategically planning and managing the company’s slate of projects, leading the production team in line with exciting growth in both original IP and co-productions.

Nora is relocating from Toronto, bringing with her over 25 years’ experience in the animation & the arts industries and will be located in Paper Owl Fim’s new Belfast-based studio. An award-winning producer, Nora has been an independent consultant, executive producer and supervising producer across many esteemed animated series such as Daniel Tiger’s Neighbourhood, Wild Kratts, Blues Clues & You, Paw Patrol, True & the Rainbow Kingdom, the Breadwinner and many more. Previously as SVP of Production for 9 Story Media, Nora had full oversight & leadership of all productions in the Toronto Studio. At Guru Studio, she was Director of Production and prior to this, she worked across many award-winning stop motion and theatrical productions.

Paper Owl is currently in production with animated Pablo spin off for 5-8 year olds Pablo: Boy Meets School for BBC Children’s, Crayola Studios and RTÉJr, in partnership with CAKE; preschool animated series Nikhil & Jay with King Banana and Cake for CBeebies, and the award winning, Celtic-inspired kids anime series Lí Ban for Cúla4/TG4 in Ireland and S4C in Wales has recently started airing, with a further 52 further episodes in development.

Gavin Halpin, Managing Director at Paper Owl Films says: “It is an exciting time of renewed energy and expansion at Paper Owl Films following the opening of our new studio. We are so grateful for the support of the UK Global Screen Fund International Business Development Award which has enabled us to appoint such an experienced Head of Production and to Northern Ireland Screen with whose visionary support in production, development and talent management has been so key to our growth.”