Emer Landers Nominated for Best Composer at Underground Cinema Film Awards 2026

Irish film composer Emer Landers has received a Best Composer nomination at the 2026 Underground Cinema Film Awards for her original score to Magic Markers, as the film receives four nominations and The Ick leads this year’s awards with eight.

Magic Markers, written and directed by Jason Branagan and produced by Emer Durcan, has received four nominations across music and craft categories. Alongside Landers’ nomination for Best Composer, Brian Durcan is nominated for cinematography, Nikki Moss for sound design, and Anna O’Doherty for costume design.

The film features a thematic orchestral score by Emer Landers, drawing inspiration from the sound of classic 1990s family films. Recurring melodic motifs and a warm, nostalgic orchestral palette accompany the film’s emotional arc and sense of childhood imagination.

The nominations continue a successful festival run for Magic Markers. The Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland Focus Short made its world premiere at the 70th Cork International Film Festival, before being selected for the Dublin Film Festival and making its international premiere at the 50th Cleveland International Film Festival in April 2026. It subsequently screened at the Fastnet Film Festival and has upcoming selections at the Newport Beach Film Festival and Dublin International Short Film & Music Festival.

Landers also composed the original score for The Ick, which has received eight Underground Cinema Awards nominations – the most nominations received by any film this year.

Written and directed by Jason Branagan and produced by Aaron Chalke, The Ick received nominations recognising Branagan and Chalke alongside actors Sofie Vavasseur and Hannah Mamalis, director of photography Keith Pendred, editor Laura Briggs, and production designer Saoirse O’Shea.

Produced for RTÉ and Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland, The Ick originally aired on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player in December 2025 as part of Storyland. The film follows an image-obsessed dater who develops a disturbing condition, forcing her to embody the worst traits of her previous romantic rejections.

Landers’ score for The Ick takes a contrasting dark hybrid sound-design approach, combining unsettling textures with lighter electronic and instrumental elements at the emotional heart of the story.

The Underground Cinema Awards recognition follows The Ick’s nomination for Best Short Film at the RTS Ireland Awards / Gradaim RTS 2026. The film is also set to make its international premiere at the Newport Beach Film Festival in October, where it will screen alongside Magic Markers in the Irish Shorts with a Touch of Luck programme.

Together, the nominations mark further recognition for both films and for the creative teams behind two distinctly different Irish productions scored by Emer Landers.