Research Team – UK Feature Docs

Steve Presence

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Dr Steve Presence is a Senior Lecturer in Film Studies in the Department of Arts and Cultural Industries at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol).

Most of his research focuses on UK film and television history, culture and policy. Steve has published widely in these fields and led several major projects as Principal and Co-Investigator. Prior to the Feature Docs project, Steve led two studies on Bristol’s film and television industries: ‘Understanding Watershed’ (2017-18), a history of Bristol’s leading independent cinema; and (with Andrew Spicer) a study of Bristol’s production sector, published as Go West! Bristol’s Film and Television Industries (2017). Steve was also Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded ‘Sustaining Alternative Film Cultures’ (2015-18), a study of international activist and experimental film culture conducted in association with the Radical Film Network. This research was recently published in the edited collection, Contemporary Radical Film Culture: Networks, Organisations and Activists (Routledge 2020).

In addition to his research work, Steve teaches on the BA Film Studies degree programme and the MA Contemporary Film Culture. He also sits on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Media Practice and Education and Frames Cinema Journal and is a member of the AHRC Peer Review College. For more information or to get in touch, visit his UWE staff profile.

Andrew Spicer

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Andrew Spicer is Professor of Cultural Production in the Department of Arts and Cultural Industries at the University of the West of England, Bristol. He has published extensively on various aspects of the screen industries as well as on masculinity, stardom and film noir.

Andrew’s publications on the film and television industries include: ‘The Production Line: Reflections on the Role of the Producer in British Cinema’, Journal of British Cinema and Television vol. 1 no. 1 (2004); Sydney Box (2006); Journal of British Cinema and Television vol. 9, no. 1, 2012 (special issue on ‘The Producer’); ‘A British empire of their own? Jewish entrepreneurs in the British film industry’, in Journal of European Popular Culture, vol. 3, no. 2 (2012); The Man Who Got Carter: Michael Klinger, Independent Production and British Cinema, 1960-1980 (2013) (with A.T. McKenna); Beyond the Bottom Line: The Producer in Film and Television Studies (2014). ‘Autonomy and Dependency in Two Successful UK Film and Television Companies: An Analysis of RED Production and Warp Films’, Film Studies, vol. 14 (2016) (co-authored with Steve Presence); Go West! Bristol’s Film and Television Industries (2016) (co-authored with Steve Presence); Building Successful and Sustainable Film and Television Businesses: A Cross-National Perspective (2017); ‘UK and European: A Case Study of Number 9 Films’, Studies in European Cinema (2018).

Andrew was a member of a European project, ‘Success in the Film and Television Industries’ (SiFTI, 2013-16) and led an investigation into the ecology of the film and television industries in Bristol. He was one of the bid writers for Bristol’s successful application to become a UNESCO City of Film from 2018 and is currently developing a major project analysing the effects of creative clustering on the UK’s film and television industries.

Alice Quigley

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Alice Quigley is a Research Associate on the UK Feature Docs project.

Alice previously worked at Watershed, leading the BFI Film Audience Network’s new release strategy which supports exhibitors and distributors to develop audiences for independent film releases in cinemas. Alice’s Feature Docs research focuses on distribution and exhibition: the specific challenges and opportunities distributors and exhibitors face working with documentary, and how we understand their place in this rapidly changing industry.

Having recently completed a Masters in Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London, Alice’s other research interests include frameworks of the commons as they relate to (arts) organisations, alternative value systems and modes of production. Alice also works on another UWE Bristol project, as part of the Bristol+Bath Creative R+D team, developing a publications strategy for UWE’s creative technology projects. Originally from Belfast, Alice worked as an arts producer for over ten years, specialising in music and arts festivals/events, and continues to provide producing support across a range of artistic projects. Recent examples include work with The Brunswick Club (a DIY artist collective), Bristol Old Vic, Anagram (award-winning immersive experience designers) and In Between Time (live art festival).

INDUSTRY BOARD

Ashish Ghadiali

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Ashish is a film director, screenwriter and co-editor of Red Pepper magazine. His BIFA nominated debut feature doc, The Confession, backed by the BBC, the BFI, Creative England and Shoebox Films, premiered in competition at Docfest in 2016, was distributed by Dogwoof and Picturehouse Cinemas, kicked-off the 2016/17 Storyville season on BBC4 and has been broadcast globally by BBC Worldwide and Al-Jazeera. In 2017, Ashish was named in the first cohort of the Doc Society Fellowship programme. He is currently engaged as a screenwriter at BBC Studios.

Daniel Gordon

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BAFTA-winning Producer/Director Daniel Gordon has over twenty years of experience in the broadcast and independent production sector. Specialising in feature documentaries, Daniel began his career with a loose trilogy in North Korea (The Game of Their Lives, A State of Mind and Crossing The Line) and has since directed and produced over a dozen more.

In 2016, Daniel directed Best, The Fall and Hillsborough – the latter film earned him an EMMY nomination, a Grierson, an ASTRA and two BAFTAs for Best Single Documentary and Best Editing – Factual.

Chris Harris

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Chris has been a programmer at Picturehouse Cinemas since 2007, and founded the Picturehouse DOCS strand. Showcasing director Q&A tours of films including Unrest and A Syrian Love Story, and the best in current documentary releases such as I Am Not Your Negro and Mountain, Picturehouse DOCS has helped to establish documentaries as a key part of the programming at Picturehouse.

Tabitha Jackson

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Tabitha Jackson was appointed Director of the Sundance Film Festival in February 2020, having previously served as Director of the Documentary Film Program at Sundance Institute since 2013.

Throughout her career in film and public broadcasting she has been committed to supporting the independent voice, championing the social and cultural power of artful cinema, and furthering the mission of uplifting a more expansive set of makers and forms.

Prior to joining Sundance she served as Head of Arts and Performance at Channel 4 Television in London, where she supported and championed the independent and alternative voice and sought to find fresh and innovative ways of storytelling. She also executive produced a number of projects for Film 4 including Mark Cousins’ cinematic odyssey The Story of Film, Clio Barnard’s hybrid The Arbor, Sophie Fiennes’ essay The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology, Bart Layton’s thriller The Imposter, and Iain and Jane’s Nick Cave collaborative biography 20,000 Days on Earth.

Emily James

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Emily is a filmmaker of international repute. Originally from California, Emily now lives and works in London. With degrees from University of California Berkeley, Cambridge University, and the UK National Film and Television School, her intellectual roots run deep, but her work is known for its lightness of touch, humour, and creative treatment of complex subjects in disarmingly accessible ways.

Emily’s films (Wag the Dogma, and A Brief History of Cuba in D minor) were already winning international awards while still at film school. Reviewing her first broadcast commission; The Luckiest Nut in the World (C4, 2002), the Guardian asserted, ‘Emily James is a genius’. After cutting her teeth in TV, she launched into feature films, first as Executive Producer on The Age of Stupid (2009) staring Pete Postlethwaite, and then her own feature directing debut, Just Do It – a tale of modern day outlaws (2011). Last year Emily completed production on her second feature documentary Silk Road: Drugs, Death, and the Dark Web (2017, BBC Storyville, A&E US). She is currently in development on a new feature film called Find Satoshi, about crypto-currency and block-chain.

Al Morrow

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Al is an award-winning producer and Head of Documentary at Met Film Production. Her new film, Jerry Rothwell’s School in the Cloud, premieres at CPH-dox in March 2018. She produced Sour Grapes, directed by Jerry Rothwell and Reuben Atlas for Netflix, Arte and VPRO and How to Change the World, directed by Jerry Rothwell (Sky Atlantic/BFI/Impact Partners/CTV), which premiered as a Day One film at the Sundance Film Festival and won the 2016 Grierson Award for Best Documentary on a Contemporary Theme – International.

Previous films include Jeanie Finlay’s films Pantomime (BBC Storyville) and the The Great Hip Hop Hoax (BBC/Creative Scotland), Sarah Gavron’s Village at the End of the World which premiered in Competition at 2012 BFI London Film Festival; Jerry Rothwell’s Town of Runners (ITVS/Britdoc C4) which premiered at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival; the Grierson-nominated film, Donor Unknown (More4/ITVS/Arte), winner of the Audience Award (online) at Tribeca Film Festival 2011, and Men Who Swim (BBC Storyville/Arte/SVT/VPRO), winner of the Audience Award at Silverdocs 2010; Heavy Load (BBC Storyville, IFCtv, ITVS); and Deep Water (Pathe/UKFC/FilmFour) winner of the Grierson Award for Best Cinema Documentary.

Elhum Shakerifar

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Elhum is a BAFTA nominated producer and recent recipient of the BFI Vision Award, producing and distributing documentaries through her company Hakawati with the core ethos that a good story is all in the telling. Recent credits include winner of the BIFA for Best Documentary Almost Heaven (Carol Salter, 2017) and BFI/Sundance funded Even When I Fall (Sky Neal and Kate McLarnon, 2017). In 2015, was self-distributed her BAFTA nominated production A Syrian Love Story (Sean McAllister, 2015) in the UK to such high visibility that it was named #3 Best Film of 2015 by the Guardian. Her work has been broadcast internationally and screened at festivals including Berlinale, IDFA and Rotterdam. Elhum is a programme advisor for London Film Festival for films from MENA and Iran and Film Curator for Shubbak, festival of contemporary Arab culture. In 2017, she was nominated for the Arab British Centre’s Award for Culture and was awarded the Women in Film and TV Factual Award.

Dionne Walker

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Dionne is a BAFTA and 2 X BIFA-nominated producer with years of experience in film, TV and media production. She has created unique programmes and exhibitions that feature issues relating to inequalities and cities, on both sides of the Atlantic: from Accra, Paris and London to Kingston, Havana and New York. As a filmmaker she has been involved with a number of projects, including the Fighting Spirit (2007), One People: The Celebration (2012) and, most recently, The Hard Stop (2016). The latter was directed by George Amponsah and explores the death of Mark Duggan at the hands of armed police, the event which sparked the 2011 London riots. The Hard Stop had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, was an official selection to the London Film Festival and enjoyed worldwide commercial release in UK cinemas, simultaneous VOD on Netflix in USA, Canada and Australia from summer 2016.

Paul Sng

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Paul Sng is a British Chinese filmmaker based in Edinburgh, Scotland, whose films are driven by methodical research, creative storytelling and a collaborative approach that strives for inclusivity and diversity in people and projects. In 2015, Paul founded Velvet Joy Productions to explore the lives and work of individuals who have been neglected, marginalised or misrepresented in the arts and media. Paul’s documentaries have been broadcast on national television and screened internationally and include Sleaford Mods – Invisible Britain (2015), Dispossession: The Great Social Housing Swindle (2017), Social Housing, Social Cleansing (2018) and Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché (2021). Underpinning all of Paul’s work is an eye for strong characters and compelling narratives, all the while working to establish and maintain trustful relationships with people both in front of and behind the camera. Paul is a member of BEATS, a not-for-profit advocacy organisation founded by British East and South East Asians [BESEA] working in the Theatre and Screen industry.

Photo credit: Alicia Bruce

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ACADEMIC BOARD

Lynn Barlow

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Journalist and broadcaster, Lynn’s career spans newspapers, radio and television. She covered social affairs as a BBC correspondent and went on to direct and produce ground-breaking documentary series including Anatomy of a Crime which won the Grierson award for best documentary series and three Royal Television Society awards.

Lynn is a voting member of BAFTA, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Encounters Film Festival and of Wildscreen, and Wildscreen Festival chair 2016. She is a board member of the Royal Television Society and chairs the Bristol committee. She is also a member of the strategic leadership group for the BFI Film Hub South West and West Midlands.

She divides her time as Assistant Vice-Chancellor, Creative and Cultural Industries Engagement for UWE, Bristol, shaping strategic policy and external partnerships with industry and as a freelance executive producer.

Sylvia Harvey

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Sylvia Harvey, Professor of Broadcasting Policy, has worked in Higher Education in Britain for 35 years, most recently at Sheffield Hallam University and at the University of Lincoln.

She completed her doctoral studies in film at the University of California, Los Angeles, returning to teach film studies in the North East of England where she was also involved in setting up a cross-sectoral association of film and television teachers. She served as a member of the British Film Institute’s Production Board and the Arts Council’s Advisory Committee on Film and Broadcasting. In the early 1990s she was seconded to work as Media Advisor to Sheffield City Council where she worked with others to establish a Media Development Fund, a Cultural Industries Quarter and a four-screen independent cinema. She was also a founder member and continues to serve on the Board of the Sheffield International Documentary Festival. She is a Trustee of the Voice of the Listener, a member of the Royal Television Society, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and was recently appointed as Chair of the Citizens’ Coalition for Public Service Broadcasting (CCPSB). Her publications include May ’68 & Film Culture and, as co-editor, Enterprise and Heritage: Cross Currents of National Culture, The Regions, The Nations and The BBC and Television Times. Her collection Trading Culture: Global Traffic and Local Cultures in Film and Television was published in 2006.

Sylvia has also published on the history and role of Channel Four in The Television History Book (Hilmes), on the organisation and regulation of broadcasting in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History, Toward a Political Economy of Culture (Calabrese and Sparks) and Blackwell’s Companion to Television (Wasco), on UK film policy in the journals Screen and Political Quarterly and on Ofcom in Screen.

Sarita Malik

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Sarita Malik is Professor of Media, Culture and Communications in the Department of Social and Political Sciences, Brunel University London. Sarita has published widely on the relationship between diversity policies and frameworks and practice, cultural representation and policy, and she has particular expertise in the screen sector.

Sarita has extensive experience in working collaboratively with institutional, industry, creative and community partners. Since 2011, she has been the Principal Investigator on several Arts and Humanities Research Council collaborative grants that have addressed contemporary concerns around social change, inequality, and cultural representation. Her books include Community Filmmaking and Cultural Diversity (Routledge, 2017) and Adjusting the Contrast: British Television and Constructs of ‘Race’ (MUP, 2017). Sarita has recently published on creative diversity as a form of sociocultural policy, on podcasting and anti-racism and on urban genres and screen representation.

Clive James Nwonka

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Dr Clive James Nwonka is an LSE Fellow in Film Studies in the Department of Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His work explores issues of realism, race, class and representation in British and American cinema, and the institutional frameworks of the British film and TV industries.

His published research includes writings on contemporary social realism, Black British cinema, film and architecture, and diversity policy. He is the co-editor of Black Film British Cinema II (2021) and author of the forthcoming book, Black Boys: The Aesthetics of British Urban Cinema (Bloomsbury Academic, 2021).

Jane Roscoe

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Professor Jane Roscoe is Pro-Vice Chancellor and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Creative Industries and Education at UWE. Jane has over 20 years’ experience as an academic and broadcaster in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. At the Australian Film, Television & Radio School, she launched the Centre for Screen Studies & Research, and led a number of large-scale industry-focused research projects. She has been Network Programmer at Australia’s SBS Television, and was responsible for launching SBS Two. More recently, as the UK-based Head of International Content at SBS, she acquired world feature films in a wide variety of languages, and brokered an impressive slate of international co-productions. She is a regular industry and academic commentator, and has published extensively on screen audiences, documentary and mock documentary. Prior to UWE, Jane was Director of the London Film School from 2014-17.

Mandy Rose

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Mandy Rose researches the politics and poetics of emerging documentary. She is a Professor in UWE Bristol’s School of Film & Journalism, Director of its Digital Cultures Research Centre, and co-director of i-Docs. A filmmaker who started out in the London independent film scene in the 1980s, Mandy has led ground-breaking participatory media projects including BBC’s “Mass Observation” camcorder project, Video Nation. She is co-investigator of the EPSRC research project, ‘Virtual Realities: Immersive Documentary Encounters’. She is co-editor of I-Docs: The Evolving Practices of Interactive Documentary (Wallflower Press 2017). Mandy is also a member of the Pervasive Media Studio executive. @CollabDocs

Patrick Russell

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Patrick Russell is Senior Curator (Non-Fiction), BFI National Archive, where he has worked since 2000 and has been heavily involved in many digitisation and other curatorial projects drawing on British traditions in non-fiction filmmaking. He is the author of the BFI Screen Guide 100 British Documentaries (2007) and co-editor of the anthology Shadows of Progress: Documentary Film in Post-War Britain (2010).

Rod Stoneman

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Rod Stoneman is an Emeritus Professor at the National University of Ireland, Galway and a Visiting Professor at UWE Bristol. He was the Director of the Huston School of Film & Digital Media, Chief Executive of Bord Scannán na hÉireann / the Irish Film Board and previously a Deputy Commissioning Editor in the Independent Film and Video Department at Channel 4 Television. He has made a number of documentaries, including Ireland: The Silent Voices, Italy: The Image Business, 12,000 Years of Blindness and The Spindle. He is the author of Chávez: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, A Case Study of Politics and the Media; Seeing is Believing: The Politics of the Visual and Educating Filmmakers: Past, Present and Future with Duncan Petrie.

Brian Winston

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Brian Winston has been involved with documentary since 1963 working for Granada TV and the BBC in the UK. In 1985, he won a US prime-time Emmy for documentary scriptwriting (for an episode of WNET’s Civilisation and the Jews). He is the author of Claiming the Real: The Documentary Film Revisited (BFI second edition, 2008) and Lies, Damned Lies and Documentaries (BFI 2000). Most recently he has edited The Documentary Film Book (BFI 2013) and The Act of Documenting (with Gail Vanstone & Chi Wang), published by Bloomsbury in January 2017. Winston is a visiting professor at UWE’s Digital Cultures Research Centre and holds the Lincoln Chair at the University of Lincoln, UK.