Our 2022 BFI NETWORK Creative Producer Lab kicks off next week and we’re excited to announce the 9 filmmakers selected to represent the North on the programme. Joining filmmakers from the Midlands, our class of 2022 will embark on a career and creative development journey over the next 6 weeks, learning essential producing skills through a series of workshops and talks with leading industry figures. Participants will leave the lab with a solid foundation in all practical aspects of managing a production, an expanded network of collaborators and peers, and the skills they need to make an impact in their local film industry.

Creative Producer Lab is supported by the BFI NETWORK teams at Film Hub North and Film Hub Midlands, and delivered by Northern-based Producers Holly Carrington (Diploid Productions) and Barrington Paul Robinson (Redbag Pictures).

Alize {a-lee-zay} is a Leeds-based producer, graduating from the University of York in Film and Television Production with First Class Honours. As well as her degree, Alize held the position of Production Director of York Student Television for over a year, giving feedback on pitches and development support before greenlighting productions. As an alumnus of the BFI Film Academy and NFTS Craft Skills Residential Academy, Alize is thrilled to continue developing her career with the BFI.

As a producer, Alize strives to bring important, female-driven stories to the screen. With her most recent short, No Place Like Home, premiering at Dead Northern Horror Film Festival, Alize is eager to continue developing her slate and networking with fellow filmmakers based in the North.

Born and raised in the North East, Carley attained a First-Class Degree in Media Production: Television, Radio and Film and a Creative Writing MA, along with many Drama related credentials. She produced an RTS nominated film and was a network delegate at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, a 4Talent trainee, a HETV chosen 50 and awarded The University of Sunderland Alumni Achiever of the Year Award. Carley was a child performer, attending the Northern Academy for Dramatic Arts from the age of 6, as well as directing, producing and performing on stages across the North. Carley has worked on a variety of TV Drama productions, working her way up through the production office where she worked closely with producers and line producers and gained experience working in script editing and script supervising from her time there. It was her time in the production office that her love for working closely with Directors and being involved in the script process and producing grew and she pursued a career in freelance script supervising to enable her to experience a career at the monitor that has become extremely successful. She has worked on over 100 episodes of soaps to High End TV Drama's for Apple TV, Amazon Prime and Netflix and recently for big budget films for Paramount and Warner Brothers. Her love for writing and developing scripts and stories has been something that she has worked her whole life to achieving and has recently created and written an original TV series, being developed with her screenwriting agent at WGM Atlantic. Founder of production company Canny Northern Media Ltd and Canny Northern Casting, she plans to build her slate as a producer, producing shorts and features for film festival release. Carley is committed to Northern voices and hopes to champion the underrepresented working-class background in which she originates, through compelling and emotive storytelling told through the eyes of real people.

Scott is currently a Producer and Head of Production at Northern Heart Films who is passionate about crafting films that have the impact to inspire positive change. His interests range from nonfiction to fiction but mostly centre on human interest, environmental and animal welfare stories. Though still very early in his career Scott’s produced a number of films for CBBC, CBeebies, The Guardian, The Mirror, Historic England, BFI Doc Society and Waterbear Network which has helped him to round off his skills as an effective, up and coming, Producer and storyteller. The highlight of Scott’s career so far is winning finance from Doc Society’s ‘Made of Truth’ fund to develop an incredibly personal short film ‘Finding Appiness’ with his long time collaborator Natasha Hawthornthwaite. Scott’s role was key to securing the funding and he was involved primarily in the budgeting and scheduling of the film. Not only does Scott have a strong interest and talent for producing, he’s done a lot of freelancing as a Self Shooting PD on non fiction projects for the BBC and Discovery Channel. Aside from Scott’s work at Northern Heart Films he’s an active participant at Creative Lancashire, he has huge ambitions for his home county and he’s involved in helping to shape the Film and TV networks in the area.

Sara worked in production accountancy at Pinewood Studios and finance at Channel 4. While at Film4, she used to borrow scripts to read on her journey to and from work; she fell in love with the art and structure of screenplays and got script reading experience with The Film Consortium. Now based in York, Sara wants to produce films to allow underrepresented voices to be heard and is especially keen to inspire women, including older women, to have fun, learn new things and take more risks.

Lewis, Bradford-born producer director, has an overlapping transdisciplinary background in sustainable development, engineering and the third sector. A specialist in building relationships and solving problems creatively, he’s most engaged when working on projects with people at their heart. Those rooted in contemporary issues, taboo and/or (sub)culture(s).

Recent projects include: Encounters – four part Netflix documentary, exec-produced by Steven Spielberg; MORE THAN JUST A VAN – hybrid documentary/music short film collaboration with artist George Bloomfield; LEODIS – six part drama series, developed on Screen Yorkshire’s Flex programme.

Menna Morgan is an up-and-coming film producer from mid-Wales. She moved to Manchester 4 years ago with an aptitude for film production, and has since completed her Drama degree and joined the innovative production company Old Hall Films as a production manager apprentice. Menna is obsessed with character-driven films that explore complex individuals. She spent much of my degree analysing scripts and became fascinated by script development and the nuances which can be created. It’s important to her to shine light on unheard stories through creative storytelling and it’s the stories which originate from personal experiences which particularly grab her attention. With support of the BFI,  Menna is producing the beautifully emotive short The Sun Is Up Forever, which is rooted in working class storytelling and childhood nostalgia.

A fan of film from a young age, Grace studied Film and English at university, and then won a Dance and Drama Award that enabled her to attend drama school. After 10 years of working as an actor, Grace left the industry and built a career in the public sector. Producing presents the opportunity to merge skills honed over her career with her passion for film.

Rosa is a filmmaker from the Lake District. Having graduated from the University of Cambridge in July 2022 majoring in the History and Philosophy of Science, she is starting the Creative Documentary by Practice MFA at UCL. She has previously made and produced a series of short films, Careers to Solve the Climate Crisis (2021), which were shown at COP26, and is currently developing a feature documentary exploring climate change and language in the Outer Hebrides.

Tasha is an emerging creative producer based in Manchester. She has produced films for BFI Network & BBC Arts as well as a handful of self-funded passion projects. Her low-budget short film Bulldog found festival success and screened worldwide, picking up the award for Best Northern Film at Bolton Film Festival 2020. She has most recently produced BFI Network short film Tow Truck, which explores a complex parent/child relationship. She’s currently in production on an episode of BBC Four’s ‘The Read’ which is a series of creative performance readings of iconic British novels.

Tasha is interested in slow cinema and revels in stories that let image and sound speak for themselves rather than relying too heavily on dialogue. She is really excited to be a part of the Creative Producers Lab 2022 and is looking forward to meeting other like-minded filmmakers.