ScreenSkills at Sundance London Film Festival

Members of the ScreenSkills team will be in attendance at this year’s Sundance London festival. Now in its tenth year, the festival is a UK spin-off of its American counterpart, championing independent cinema and introducing the likes of Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino and David O. Russell to audiences.

For the second year, there will be an industry programme as part of the festival with screen professionals offered opportunities to discuss wider film topics. Naomi Joseph, Film Team Manager, will take part in a networking brunch event discussing her screen career journey alongside nine other industry members and hosted by journalist and critic Wendy Mitchell.

Celia Small, ScreenSkills’ Film Programmes and Placements Lead, will feature as part of the Live From the Studio strand of the festival, speaking with 3^rd assistant director Charanprite Dhami in an interview hosted by Picturehouse Cinema’s Felicity Beckett.

On Thursday 6 July, ScreenSkills will sponsor the Happy Hour event in the members bar, inviting badgeholders, industry guests and filmmakers to get to know each other over drinks and snacks. Emma Turner, ScreenSkills Head of Film, will be in attendance and introduce a showreel highlighting the work of the Film Skills Fund.

The film festival will open with a screening of British film Scrapper, a production that contributed to the Film skills Fund and welcomed trainees from the Film Trainee Finder programme and a member of the Film Forward cohort onto production.

Speaking of the experience, the film’s producer, Jennifer Monks, said: “Working with ScreenSkills on SCRAPPER was an absolute joy. We had some fantastic trainees who have since gone on to join me on further productions deploying their clear talent and passion for the industry. Support from ScreenSkills to identify and recruit such hardworking and creative Trainees was vital to complementing our small team. The recruitment of a Film Forward crew member was the icing on the cake as, not only were we able to bring in new trainee entrants, but we were also able to offer established crew the opportunity to step up and progress in their careers. The ScreenSkills cohort were very much part of the SCRAPPER family and I look forward to seeing their careers blossom further.”