Neasa Ní Chianáin started directing in 2001 with television documentaries. Her previous credits include the award-winning “Frank Ned & Busy Lizzie,” which won the Best Feature award at The Celtic Film Festival 2004; “Fairytale of Kathmandu,” which world premiered at IDFA 2007 in the Silver Wolf Competition and subsequently won three international awards; and “The Stranger”, which premiered in Locarno Film Festival in 2014.

“In Loco Parentis” will premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival on January 20. The film is co-directed by David Rane.

W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.

NNC: It’s a story of human warmth and the magical capacity of two delightfully unconventional teachers who help their young students overcome a variety of different challenges.

Set in a rambling 18th century country house tucked away in a wooded estate in Ireland’s ancient East, “In Loco Parentis” charts a year in the life of Headfort, a primary-age boarding school, through the story of two passionate teachers who met at the school when they were young and have been living on the school grounds for 48 years.

The film takes the audience on a journey from an initial position of wondering how parents could leave children so young in such a foreboding place to the closing scenes of heartbreaking, tearful goodbyes, leaving the viewer thinking how lucky these children were to have spent time there.

W&H: What drew you to this story?

NNC: My partner and co-director David and I both went to boarding school. I was a day pupil in a primary boarding school and then elected to go to a boarding high school and had a great experience. David was sent from Africa back to boarding school in England at the age of seven and had a traumatic time.

As parents and as documentary filmmakers, we were keen to know what a 21st century boarding school looked like, and to document the experience for children boarding today.

W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?

NNC: I’d like them to leave the theater feeling a lot more positive about life than when they went in. I’d like them to leave thinking about the importance of investing in children’s childhood and thinking about creating situations where children are free to discover for themselves who they really are. Happy children thrive, learn, and overcome all sorts of challenges once they’re having fun.

I’d also like the audience to fall in love with our main characters, and to be lost in admiration at how passionate they are about their work. They are delightfully unconventional and eccentric — Amanda with her eyebrow piercing, John with his wild hair and casual dress — but they are 100 percent committed to their teaching and to the children in their charge.

W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?

NNC: Observational filming is never easy. Crafting an engaging narrative with no voiceover, no interviews, and no signposts takes time. We spent two school years filming and one year editing. Finding the funding for such a project was the biggest challenge; the rest was pure pleasure.

W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.

NNC: First, we went the traditional route and wrote a detailed proposal of what we thought the film would be. But I think commissioning editors have possibly become cynical about written proposals and perhaps don’t believe what the filmmaker is promising.

Then we shot some research footage, introducing some of our characters and giving a general flavor of the world we wanted to portray. This piqued curiosity from the Irish Film Board and RTE, Ireland’s national broadcaster, and both gave us some development money.

We were also successful in getting some Creative Europe development funding and this saw us through our first year of filming. From this material we were able to put together some assemblies of different sections of the school, which encouraged IFB and RTE to commit beyond development.

Meanwhile, we also sought co-production partners in France and Spain. We managed to interest TVE in Spain when we pitched it at Miradasdocs Market. We then went to the Berlinale and pitched the project to various sales agents and gathered a few letters of interest.

This gave the IFB more confidence in the project as they like to fund projects with theatrical potential. With both the IFB and RTE on board we applied to the Broadcast Authority Ireland (BAI) for funding and we were successful on the second attempt.

We now had RTE, IFB, BAI, Creative Europe, and TVE. Their combined funding made us eligible for the Irish Tax incentive scheme, and completed our budget.

W&H: What does it mean for you to have your film play at Sundance?

NNC: It’s incredibly exciting. It helps raise our profile as filmmakers on a world stage, but most importantly it’s a fantastic platform to launch the film and get it noticed.

We’re really hoping to attract a cinema distributor, which we know is a challenge for a lot of documentaries, but we believe our film reads as well as any good fiction film with a strong narrative, and the only difference is that our characters are not acting.

It’s as authentic a piece of storytelling as you can get. I think this is what audiences want — they want to be entertained, but they also want to experience something unique that they can relate to, and a film that makes them feel positive about the world in these unpredictable times. Sundance selection also makes our backers very happy.

W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?

NNC: The worst advice we received was to try and attach a sales agent to our film before we’d even shot it. In the current climate, where the market is saturated with great material, sales agents generally wait until rough cut before acquiring films.

The best advice was to cast our characters very carefully. If you find great characters the rest will follow.

W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?

NNC: Believe in yourselves — you’re probably much more talented than your male counterparts, but you may lack the confidence to know it because the industry is so male-dominated.

W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.

NNC: Kim Longinotto’s “Divorce Iranian Style.” Kim’s an observational filmmaker and shoots her films herself, routinely capturing moments of incredible intimacy. As an audience member you feel like you’re there with her in the world she captures.

I love the way that the protagonists feel so comfortable with Kim’s camera that they whisper to it as a confidante. Kim is also incredibly generous and encouraging to other filmmakers.

W&H: Have you seen opportunities for women filmmakers increase over the last year due to the increased attention paid to the issue? If someone asked you what you thought needed to be done to get women more opportunities to direct, what would be your answer?

NNC: Positive discrimination. Yes, I think there’s a lot more talk and focus being given to the disparity in funding received by women for their projects and their male counterparts — but if one really wants to tip the balance, I think there should be positive discrimination towards female filmmakers for a few years so that more women feel confident enough to come forward.

I believe Sweden tried this and it worked with fantastic results. Women’s films tend to perform as well as if not better than men’s, yet this is not reflected in the allocation of funding.