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A weekly podcast interviewing women behind-the-scenes and below-the-line of the British film industry.
Episodes
Tuesday Dec 14, 2021
Tuesday Dec 14, 2021
It’s been a weird week, with Omicron taking hold and trying to feel festive but also feeling quite apprehensive. So I hope you’re surviving, which has definitely been the overarching theme for 2021. And as always I hope this podcast brings a little bit of light into your week.
It’s an appropriate segue to introduce my guest - filmmaker Sophie Littman - whose short film Sudden Light was selected for competition at the 2020 Cannes Film Festival 2020 and was nominated for a BIFA that same year. Her latest short film Know the Grass screened at the BFI London Film Festival in October and was long listed for Best British Short at this year’s BIFAs. It’s also playing in competition at the upcoming London Short Film Festival and you can buy tickets for that right now at shortfilms.org.uk.
Sophie has a background in Fine Art and graduated from the UCL Slade School of Fine Art, which is where she got her start making experimental video work.
We chat about what that label ‘experimental’ means to her, how she honed her voice as a filmmaker and we go deep on creative process, as Sophie enlightens me on this idea of horizontal versus vertical work which I thought was brilliant. We also talk about getting an agent and being named a ScreenDaily Star of Tomorrow earlier this year.
A quick housekeeping note - this was recorded over Zoom and occasionally it sounds like it - but I hope you enjoy our conversation regardless.
This is episode 99 of Best Girl Grip.
Tuesday Dec 07, 2021
Tuesday Dec 07, 2021
My guest this week is Akua Gyamfi who has over 20 years of experience in the entertainment industry, with a career spanning fashion, film, television, theatre, print and online media.
Starting out behind the scenes, Akua carved out a reputable career as a hair stylist on London’s Portobello Road. Her hairdressing reputation lead to her first foray into the entertainment world with a hair CV which includes work for magazines Vogue, Disorder, BOLZ, and i-D. Since 2010 she has been a part of the Paul Hanlon hair team during both London and Paris fashion weeks for Matthew Williamson, Topshop Unique, Jonathan Saunders, Giles and more. She also worked on set for various music videos and British gangster film Rollin’ With the Nines.
After leaving a full-time career in hairstyling, Akua studied journalism at London College of Communications (formerly London College of Printing) and her career as a freelance journalist took off. Akua worked at renowned underground music digital TV station Channel AKA (formerly known as Channel U). Then moved to the BBC where she worked at their Performing Arts Fund, BBC Writersroom and then BBC R&D.
In 2010 Akua worked with director Mark 1 to co-write, and produce anti-knife and gun crime short film, After Effects. During this time, Gyamfi gained valuable insight into the machinations of script writing and turned those skills into becoming a script consultant for new screenwriters & playwrights.
In 2012, Akua launched multi-award winning platform The British Blacklist, a media outlet for BAME entertainment professionals. The British Blacklist is a media brand respected throughout the industry for its dedication to news of British black professionals in screen, stage, sound, and literature and its database documenting and championing their achievements in a way that hasn’t been done before.
Akua is also a sought-after commentator regularly speaking on news outlets. She is on the board of The New Black Film Collective and is a regular collaborator with We Are Parable. Akua is also a regular chair for screenings and panel discussions hosted by BAFTA and the BFI.
So there was a lot to talk about! We also cover what success means to Akua, if there’s anything she would do differently, what it actually means to be a founder and what keeps her creatively energised. I really appreciated Akua’s transparency and straight-forwardness, and I think there are definitely some wisdoms to be gleaned. So here is that interview…
Tuesday Nov 30, 2021
Tuesday Nov 30, 2021
My guest this week is a wonderful woman and friend: Nia Childs.
Nia is a freelance creative producer and curator working in both the fiction and documentary space. She’s produced, curated and programmed projects for Doc Society, BAFTA, Sheffield Doc/Fest, the London Short Film Festival and The Roundhouse. More recently, she has begun to write and direct her own films, with her debut short The Other End premiering at the BFI London Film Festival earlier this year.
We spoke about a myriad of things, including managing your finances as a freelancer, making a short film in lockdown, crowdfunding and finding a producer. We also touch on storytelling about crime, climate and class and why people should watch more short films. As well how Nia overcame anxiety around bad on-set experiences to create a fun and safe atmosphere on her own set.
I want to thank Nia for her candour about her finances and some of her fears about her transition to filmmaking. I genuinely think it’s going to be a crucial listen for any fellow freelance creatives.
Tuesday Nov 23, 2021
Tuesday Nov 23, 2021
Siobhán Harper-Ryan is a Hair & Make-Up Designer who started out as an apprentice in fashion design & millinery in London’s Camden Lock, before exploring the world of theatre in the 90s where she found a place within London’s Off West-End and the Fringe. In 1999 Siobhán changed course and trained in make-up artistry and has since enjoyed a varied & colourful career, working on a range of TV and film projects. Recently she worked on Sky Atlantic’s series I Hate Suzie, as well as Joanna Hogg’s films The Souvenir and The Souvenir Part II. The latter for which she just earned a BIFA nomination. She also worked on Joanna’s next film The Eternal Daughter, and Peter Strickland’s upcoming film Flux Gourmet.
This is my first time chatting to a make-up designer on Best Girl Grip, so as well as chatting about Siobhán’s route into make-up artistry, we also go back to basics, discussing how she decides what make-up to use, what goes into creating onscreen looks, particularly for subtle period dramas like The Souvenir and how she establishes a rapport with the actors. We also talk about neurodivergence in the film industry, building confidence and taking time for yourself on the hubbub of a film set.
I hope you enjoy listening to our chat. Make sure to catch The Souvenir Part II when it’s released in cinemas on 21st January next year.
This is episode 96 of Best Girl Grip.
Tuesday Nov 16, 2021
Tuesday Nov 16, 2021
This week’s interview was a real treat to record. Sam Joly, my guest, radiates joy and positivity, but what I got from this chat is the sense that that’s a choice and one that sometimes takes work and so I hope you come away from it with a smile, but also a sense of how you can celebrate your personal achievements and maybe make that choice too.
Sam is Head of Marketing and Publicity at the film and television production house See-Saw Films. These are the folks that made The King’s Speech, Lion, Widows, Macbeth, Ammonite, Slow West, Top of the Lake, State of the Union and more recently Jane Campion’s ferocious gothic Western The Power of the Dog and Andrew Haigh’s riveting TV series The North Water.
Sam started her career in documentary television before joining See-Saw in 2011 where she worked her way up from assistant.
We spoke about many things to do with marketing such as poster design, creating trailers, what good publicity actually looks like and how involved directors are, as well as several more broad topics such as mental health on film sets, how you can better value and advocate for yourself, and that time Sam produced a Steve McQueen-directed music video for Kanye West…
This is episode 95 of Best Girl Grip.
Show notes
Friday Nov 12, 2021
Friday Nov 12, 2021
I’m here today with a bonus minisode with two-time Academy-Award nominated filmmaker Liz Garbus to celebrate the release of her latest documentary Becoming Cousteau.
If you listened to last Tuesday’s interview with Anna Godas, CEO of Dogwoof, you’ll have heard me mention the film. Well it’s out in UK cinemas today and all puns intended, I think you’ll have a whale of a time.
For over four decades, Jacques-Yves Cousteau and his explorations under the ocean became synonymous with a love of science and the natural world. As he learned to protect the environment, he brought the whole world with him, sounding alarms more than 50 years ago about the warming seas and our planet’s vulnerability. In Becoming Cousteau, from National Geographic Documentary Films, Liz takes an inside look at Cousteau and his life, his iconic films and inventions, and the experiences that made him the 20th century’s most unique and renowned environmental voice.
It’s a documentary that reinstates or reframes Cousteau as a revolutionary, as well as a father and filmmaker, and I’m quoting the New York Times here “succeeds in restoring some of Cousteau’s luster, and also his relevance. It’s a swift-moving, detailed biography, recounting a life that was long, eventful and stippled with tragedy and regret.”
It’s awe-inspiring, heartbreaking, energetic and emotional filmmaking, and at 93 minutes long, should definitely be high up on your watchlist this weekend.
Liz Garbus is one of America's most celebrated documentary filmmakers. She has received three Emmy Awards, two Peabody Awards, two Academy Award nominations, and a Grammy Award nomination for her body of work, which includes The Farm: Angola, USA; What Happened, Miss Simone?; Bobby Fischer Against the World; Nothing Left Unsaid; There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane; The Fourth Estate; among others. In 2020 she turned her hand to narrative filmmaking and directed Lost Girls which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and is currently available to watch on Netflix.
We talk about why she was compelled to make this film about Cousteau, how she imbued the documentary with his own adventurous spirit, how she crafted his story through over 550 hours of archive material and the different muscles you have to flex working on fiction as opposed to non-fiction. It’s a brief but buoyant conversation, and I was thrilled to have the chance to speak with Liz about her wonderful film.
Tuesday Nov 09, 2021
Tuesday Nov 09, 2021
My guest this week is Anna Godas, the CEO of documentary distribution company Dogwoof, who have released films such as The Alpinist, The Act of Killing, Blackfish, Cameraperson, Citizenfour, Free Solo, Honeyland, Minding the Gap, OJ:Made in America, RBG and many many more. Quite simply, if Dogwoof are putting a doc into cinemas, you’re probably in for a treat.
Their latest film is Becoming Cousteau, directed by Liz Garbus which is released this Friday and provides an inside look at the life of Jacques-Yves Cousteau, and the experiences that made him the man who inspired generations to protect the Earth.
Anna has steered the company from a small UK indie film distributor to a leading global brand in the field of documentary and was directly responsible for the creation of Dogwoof's international sales arm, as well as the creation of Dogwoof's fund T-Dog Productions. Anna is now focusing on growing Dogwoof's production and development side, focusing on feature docs, doc series, remake rights, podcast and shorter content. Her mission is to create a fully integrated true stories mini-studio.
We talk about the origin story of Dogwoof, as well as how her role as evolved over the years and since becoming a mother. We discuss how she strives to create an open, transparent and healthy working culture, how the documentary landscape is changing and why, and why you can’t really plan for the future.
It was a joy to speak to Anna and hope you enjoy this insight into one of the most prolific distributors out there.
This is episode 94 of Best Girl Grip.
Friday Nov 05, 2021
Friday Nov 05, 2021
Hello! Welcome to Season Five of Best Girl Grip.
This week my guest is Jemma Desai. I first encountered Jemma at an event hosted by The Quarter Club, which was co-founded by former podcast guest Jo Duncombe, where Jemma was reading a letter she had written to her daughter Leena which evolved into a TinyLetter for a while. And then I kept encountering Jemma’s name and work in various iterations and I was always struck by how thoughtful and rigorous and I guess, unconventional it was. And then in 2020 I read Jemma’s research paper 'This Work Isn’t For Us', which considers how arts institutions and cultural policy - particularly initiatives towards inclusion - have treated, or mistreated the Black and Brown people they seek to include. And I’ve never read anything like it. It's a significant piece of work in so many ways and I knew then that I wanted to speak to Jemma about it, and so I’m really glad that she agreed to come on the podcast and talk about all manner of things, including that.
In terms of a professional work biography, Jemma is is a writer, researcher and curator based in London, currently completing a PhD on practices of freedom in the arts. Most recently she was Head of Programming at the Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival and she has also held positions at the BFI London Film Festival, British Council and Independent Cinema Office. She is also the founder of a curatorial initiative called I Am Dora and is a fellow of the Clore Leadership programme.
We talk about a myriad of things including her role as programmer and her ambivalence around that label, community, colonialism, the need to redefine or abolish the idea of linear progression, what leadership means to her, and why she hopes it will be dismantled, the issues at the heart of campaigns like #MeToo and #OscarsSoWhite, how to structurally enable care, out of office emails, embracing possibility and joy and much much more.
I see this podcast episode as being, hopefully, a bit of an antidote to feeling like you don’t belong in the film industry, or feeling like your career doesn’t make sense or isn’t one thing. I think it’s a really expansive and generous conversation and as you’ll hear in the intro it was actually our second recording, so I’m really grateful to Jemma for sitting down me with me on two occasions and having what I see as being a bit of an eye-opening or mind-expanding discussion.
SHOW NOTES
Jemma's Work
- Follow Jemma on Twitter
- Jemma's linktree
- Notes on Programming Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival 2021
- An interview with Matt Turner for Sentient Art Film which goes into more depth on Jemma's programming collective 'I Am Dora' and also tells a slightly more expanded 'career story'.
- 'This Work Isn't For Us'
- The video piece Jemma created as a reflection on making and disseminating 'This Work Isn't For Us'.
- A Letter to Leena about care
Things Jemma talks about in the podcast
- Activist collective Resist + Renew
- Jordan Lorde's 'Shared Resources'
- Healing Justice London
- The bare minimum collective's manifesto
Jemma's book & film recommendations
- 'Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power' - Lola Olufemi
- Picture books written by Toni Morrison and her son Slade that Jemma is reading with her own daughter
- 'Me, Not You: the trouble with mainstream feminism' - Alison Phipps
- Merata: How Mum Decolonised The Screen, a documentary about trailblazing Maori filmmaker Merata Miti currently on Netflix
Thursday Sep 02, 2021
Thursday Sep 02, 2021
This week I am back with the third instalment of my bonus trilogy and my guest is the incredibly talented, incredibly charming Cathy Brady!
Cathy is a two-time IFTA-winning director, having won Best Short in 2011 for her first film Small Change and again in 2013 for Morning. In 2011, Cathy directed the BIFA nominated short Rough Skin, starring Vicky McClure, and in 2013, Cathy was named one of Screen Daily’s ‘Stars of Tomorrow’.
In 2014, Cathy directed on the BAFTA-nominated drama-thriller series Glue. More recently, Cathy directed Stefanie Preissner's TV comedy series Can’t Cope/Won’t Cope.
Wildfire, her debut feature film which we’re here to talk about, alongside how her career led to this moment, is released in UK cinemas tomorrow (on Friday 3 September).
Cathy’s film tells the story of inseparable sisters - Lauren and Kelly - raised in a small town on the Irish border, but whose lives are shattered by the mysterious death of their mother. Lauren is left to pick up the pieces after Kelly abruptly disappears, but when she returns home after being reported missing for a whole year, their intense sisterhood is reunited.
I saw the film at LFF last year and it was haunting and poignant and spectral and definitely had this spiky, fiery quality to it. It’s also lensed by Crystel Fournier who has worked on lots of Celine Sciamma’s movies, including Girlhood and Tomboy.
Anyway, this chat was lovely and I could spend many hours talking to Cathy. We cover her time at the NFTS, how she hustled to get directing work upon graduation, the experience of making Wildfire and then the difficulty of releasing it during a pandemic and whilst grieving the death of one it’s lead actresses Nika McGuigan.
I definitely urge you to support this film in cinemas, but in the meantime, enjoy our conversation.
This is episode 92 of Best Girl Grip.
Tuesday Aug 24, 2021
Tuesday Aug 24, 2021
Today I’m sharing another in-between season bonus episode that I recorded live as part of the BFI’s Woman With a Movie Camera Summit in July. My guest was Molly Manning Walker, a cinematographer, writer and director.
Molly trained as a cinematographer and graduated from NFTS in 2019, after which her graduation film November 1st was long-listed for a BAFTA. As a DP, she works across a variety of formats including documentary, fiction and advertising, and she has just finished shooting her first TV series, Superhoe, written by Nicole Lecky and directed by Dawn Shadforth and she is in prep for Scrapper directed by Charlotte Regan.
Molly’s debut writing and directing project was the short film Good Thanks, You? which premiered at the Semaine De La Critique program at the Cannes Film Festival. Her follow up short film, conceived and created during the pandemic, The Forgotten C, was BIFA Nominated. Meanwhile, her debut feature film How To Have Sex is currently in development with Film4 and Molly was recently awarded the Next Step Prize at Cannes.
I thought it was a quite a no-bullshit conversation - Molly is quite young, and to mind, very successful and on a very exciting trajectory, but she made it very clear that has only been achieved through a very strong work ethic. Listening back to it for the edit I think it’s full of quite practical advice and we talk about how limitations can be creatively useful, what support looks like on-set and how counselling and intimacy co-ordination were crucial to the making of Molly’s short film Good Thanks, You? As well as discussing Molly’s transition from shooting to directing, why she makes a habit of only using one light and what she considers to be the biggest learning curve of her career so far.
I hope you enjoy listening to it!