NOVENA Directed by award winning filmmaker Anna Rodgers who has made numerous LGBT films which have been distributed internationally, Novena captures an unusual event in Catholic Ireland. The Solemn Novena is an annual 9 day festival of faith at St. Joseph’s Redemptorists church, Dundalk. Each year the festival is attended by thousands, coming from the local area and the surrounding towns and counties. In the 2012 St. Gerard Majella Novena, the festival director, Fr. Michael Cusack, invited Stephen Vaughan and Kay Ferreter to address the congregation about their experiences of being gay and lesbian in Ireland and feeling excluded by Catholic doctrine. This short film documents this event, capturing their powerful speech and one priest’s aspirations of a more inclusive church.