Paul Sturtz is Co-Conspirator (with David Wilson) of True/False, an "transformative, rambunctious, ecstatic" film festival and community in Columbia, Missouri. The festival is committed to nonfiction filmmaking and to environmental and social justice. In 2017, True/False partnered with Kickstarter to support childcare provision [...]
Ashley Sabin produces, directs, photographs and edits critically-acclaimed cinematic documentaries that have screened internationally in festivals and on television worldwide at Sundance, Toronto, Cinema du Reel, Rotterdam, Visions du Reel, RIDM, MoMA, and Viennale Film Festivals and on PBS, POV, BBC, [...]
Robin Swicord is the award-winning and Oscar-nominated screenwriter of a significant body of films that often put the family lives of women front and centre, including Little Women, Matilda (with her husband, Nick Kazan), The Perez Family, Practical Magic, and Memoirs of a Geisha, as [...]
Shakyra Dowling founded her own successful theatre production company in the 1990s, and then went on to work for a well known producer, assisting in the casting of several West End shows, before moving to the film and TV industry as [...]
Desperate Optimists are Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor. Born in Dublin, Ireland, they studied theatre in the UK in the late 80s. From 1992 to 1999 they toured six internationally acclaimed devised theatre shows. Between 2000 and 2003 they directed a number of [...]
I work for myself, like many people in film & TV, so maternity leave hasn’t really been an option for me in the traditional sense. With both my children I had a very notional three weeks off, which in reality involved [...]
Kelly O'Brien is an independent filmmaker and mother of three who lives in Toronto. Her film “Softening” won the grand jury prize in the shorts competition at the 2013 DOC NYC festival and appeared in the New York Times online. She recently exhibited [...]
Making a film is hard. Making a film and having a baby is a lot harder! Back in 2006, I was a busy freelancer working on popular factual shows for broadcasters like the BBC, Channel 4 and Discovery, travelling the world and [...]
As a young producer’s assistant, then script editor, then head of development, I was too busy working and chasing the next bit of development funding to think about kids. But by 30, I’d built up enough regular freelance script editing clients [...]
Sometimes I feel like an Uber driver in Los Angeles. I’ve moved to a city where my skill is necessary and much valued, but comes with no job security. And definitely no tips. I’m a freelance Archive Producer, which involves footage [...]
This week we had our first informal Raising Films gathering, to discuss Shooting Away From Home. A room of parents gathered to share their experiences, or to find answers to questions that were worrying them. Some people were shooting away from [...]
"I'm excited, and a little unnerved, to be part of this original event, which brings my professional and parental responsibilities into the same space for the first time," said Making Films, Making Change panellist Jennifer Armitage, Screen Officer at Creative Scotland. It was the first time [...]
Clare Binns is Acquisitions & Programming Director for the Picturehouse Cinema Group. As well as acquiring titles for Picturehouse Entertainment, she is responsible for overall programming policies. Winner of the 2009 WFTV Award for Contribution to the Medium and 2015 Screen Awards Exhibition [...]
Beeban Kidron, Baroness Kidron, OBE, is a filmmaker, activist and campaigner. Her early films, Carry Greenham Home and Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, are key texts of British and feminist cinema. She subsequently moved to Hollywood, making films including Used People, To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, [...]
Hattie Morahan is a stage and screen star. She was was awarded the Best Actress prize at the Critics' Circle Awards 2013 and won the Natasha Richardson Award for Best Actress at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards 2012 for her portrayal of Nora in Carrie Cracknell's A [...]
Alexis Zegerman is a screen and stage actor, best known for her role in Happy-Go-Lucky (Mike Leigh, 2008). She has also written screen, stage and radio. She was a finalist for the prestigious 2011-2012 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, and won a British [...]
Marie-Hélène Cousineau formed the collective Arnait Ikajurtigiit (Women's Video Workshop, now Arnait Video Productions) in Igloolik, Nunavut, in 1991. She is its coordinator/trainer as well as an active collaborating producer. Cousineau has written about the experiences of women making video in Igloolik [...]
Being a freelance worker has a multitude of benefits, but working from home while my partner was on maternity leave was one I hadn’t really thought about until it happened. Working with my sleeping newborns slung across my chest, playing with [...]
I'm fairly new to this malarkey. Round about one year in and counting. This whole writer-mother scenario. The latest no-budget action movie coming to a cinema very near you if we can get the distribution sorted. In some ways nothing has [...]
