After a brief hiatus due to the pandemic, we are delighted to announce that our new Glasgow Film Talent Mentorship scheme is finally underway. We have now confirmed our six filmmakers who will receive mentoring, and they have all been assigned their mentors. Over the next six months they will be coached on their projects, assisted in their professional development, gaining knowledge on the inner-workings of the UK film industry.
Read below to find out about each of our mentees, and their assigned mentors.
We’ll be checking in with our mentees throughout the process, so stay tuned for updates on how their projects and skillsets are developing along the way.
Bircan Birol
Bircan is an emerging creative documentary filmmaker based in Glasgow. Starting at university, she has been filming journalistic documentaries and covering news about human rights issues. She has recently directed her first creative short documentary My Name is Anik (Navê Min Anik) with Scottish Documentary Institute. Her camera still follows compelling human stories from under-represented groups.
Bircan’s Mentor: Naziha Arebi
Naziha Arebi is a British/Libyan artist and filmmaker. Alongside her award-winning, BAFTA-nominated feature Freedom Fields (TIFF, LFF, IDFA, CPHdox), she is also producing feature film After a Revolution and working on a hybrid fiction feature. Naziha is also co-founder of HuNa Productions, a Tripoli-based production collective, working at the intersection between art and activism, creating films around identity, gender and reconciliation with BBC, Al Jazeera, Hivos, Oxfam and NGO’s. Naziha is a Sundance Edit Lab and Hot Doc Blue Ice fellow, a WEF Global Shaper, and a member of Lumiere D’Afrique. Naziha also works as a cinematographer, and her artwork and photography has been published extensively in print, and exhibited globally.
Reece Cargan
Reece is an emerging producer and founder of Bombito Productions, a Glasgow-based production company. Reece also works in the production office of high-end film and TV, and is currently producing two commissioned shorts: a documentary Venus & Mars (Scottish Documentary Institute) with writer director Jack Goessens about transitioning, exploring how the world is different living as a female to being perceived as male; and a short fiction film Who I Am Now with writer Michael Lee Richardson, starring trans activist and actor Adam Kashmiry. He is expanding Bombito’s slate with a number of short, feature and TV projects in development.
Reece’s Mentor: Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor
Joy, a 2019 ‘Breakthrough Producer’ BIFA nominee, has established a strong dynamic voice as a writer and producer, having recently produced Rapman's Blue Story with Damian Jones. Her second feature film, White Colour Black, was nominated for the IWC Filmmakers Award at the BFI London Film Festival where it premiered in 2016. She was part of the BFI Flare Mentorship Scheme in 2016, in which her mentor was (and continues to be) Ben Roberts, who is the Chief Executive of the BFI. She runs Joi Productions, a film production company focused on Queer, Black and Female-led work. Joy's slate includes a variety of other projects at Film4, BBC Films and BFI.
Claire Clark
Claire Clark is a digital artist based in Glasgow. Working with a variety of mediums, she delivers engaging content in digital communication with a focus on increasing diversity within the creative industries, and improving inclusivity for deaf people. Claire has worked with Creative Scotland, Manipulate Festival, Hidden Door Festival, SQIFF, and Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Claire is also currently a trustee for Solar Bear.
Claire’s Mentor: Michael Lee Richardson
Michael Lee Richardson is a writer and youth worker based in Glasgow.
Michael’s short film, My Loneliness Is Killing Me – directed by Tim Courtney – won a BAFTA Scotland Award (Best Short Film) and was given an ‘honourable mention’ for the Best of British strand at the Iris Prize 2019. It has been shown on BBC Scotland and at film festivals around the world. He is part of BBC Writers Room’s Scottish Voices group, and in 2019 was awarded a Young Films Foundation fellowship.
Michael’s current funded development projects include Big Mood, a young adult drama series in development with Kindle Entertainment; Station Road, a drama series in development with Project Pictures; The Shed, an original children’s drama series in development with Tigerlily Productions; and Where I Am Now, a short film with Bombito Productions.
As a youth worker, Michael set up and ran Trans Youth Glasgow, and is a passionate advocate for Scotland’s young people.
Seif El Din Khaled
Born and raised in Cairo, Egypt, Seif displayed a passion for photography and storytelling from an early age and became a professional photographer during his bachelor studies.
In 2014, after graduating from the Media Arts and Design department of the German University in Cairo, he went on to combine his love for the still and moving image, nurturing his ability of understanding story and capturing emotion through the lens. He directed and shot short films, documentaries and music videos, some of which got attention from local and international festivals. Two years later he broke into the advertising world as a producer in parallel to being a camera crew member involved in professional cinematography, where he was able to sharpen his filmmaking skills in general but especially in camera work. After concluding his MA in cinematography from KinoEyes (The European Movie Masters) in 2020, he is focused towards building on what he has learned throughout the years and developing a working career in the UK.
Seif’s Mentor: George Geddes
George Geddes is a Glasgow-based cinematographer whose work in documentary, drama, commercials and collaborations with artists has been shown internationally over the past 15 years, picking up numerous awards. This includes the film It For Others which won Duncan Campbell the Turner Prize. Festival screenings have included those at Toronto, Venice and EIFF. George shot the Scottish rom-com feature film Not Another Happy Ending, BBC series Eve and children’s series Molly and Mack. Most recently he shot Gillies MacKinnon’s feature The Last Bus starring Timothy Spall. He enjoys collaborating with creative filmmaking teams and hopes to continue working across a broad variety of projects.
Yusuf Javed
Since the age of seven, Yusuf has wanted to write and make films. This led him to be the youngest apprentice in Glasgow’s Second Light filmmaking apprenticeship and to study Scriptwriting for Film and Television at Bournemouth University. He has worked on short documentaries, written various short films and gained a keen interest in script development. His aim is to produce work that explores ‘otherness’ with its characters while also being entertaining and thoughtful.
Yusuf’s Mentor: Campbell X
Campbell X is a writer/director who directed the debut award-winning queer urban romantic comedy feature film Stud Life (2012) which has just been featured as one of the Top 10 Best Black British Films in The Guardian. Campbell directed and produced the short film DES!RE, and the documentary VISIBLE which headlined the Scottish Queer Film Festival. Campbell directed the award-winning LGBTQ web-series Different For Girls, and is one of the directors of the transgender web-series Spectrum London. Campbell was included in the Top 50 LGBTIQ people in the UK by The Independent on Sunday Pink List. Campbell is also a Co-founder, with Neelu Bhuman, of Wahala Film Fund, a completion fund for QPOC films and filmmakers.
Holly Summerson
Holly is an animator and illustrator with an interest in hand-drawn, mixed media and experimental styles. She is drawn to social, political and educational projects, and would like to be involved in more community art and film-making. She graduated from Edinburgh College of Art with a degree in animation in 2019, and has since been combining freelance work with a part-time job. She is very excited to work with a mentor and learn more about working in film.
Holly’s Mentor: Sueann Rochester
Driven by a love of all things animated and a need to organise things, Sueann was always destined to be an animation producer. She graduated from Edinburgh College of Art with a degree in animation and moved into her first production role at Red Kite Animations. With almost 20 years of experience in long-form TV production, Sueann has worked with clients including Cartoon Network, Disney, the BBC and DC Thomson, and produced BAFTA and EMMY-nominated shows Dennis & Gnasher and Ask Lara. Her current role as Managing Director of Wild Child Animation is to help shape and grow a world class animation studio in Scotland that produces original IP and third party content. Her goal is to create high quality, story-driven animation for all ages.