Best Girl Grip

This is week my guest is Desiree Akhavan! 

Desiree’s first feature film was 2014’s APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOUR, in which she also starred. It came off the back of a web series she made in 2010 called The Slope, with fellow NYU postgrad film student Ingrid Jungermann.

After Appropriate Behaviour, Desiree had a guest spot on the TV show Girls, and also began adapting the book THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST, al...

This week’s guest is Moss Barclay, an Executive Producer for TV at See-Saw Films, whose shows include SLOW HORSES  and THE ESSEX SERPENT on Apple TV+, HEARTSTOPPER on Netflix and THE NORTH WATER on BBC iPlayer.

Moss started her career working for filmmaker Paul Greengrass before co-founding new-writing theatre festival, HighTide. She was also an intern at Working Title and went on to hold positions at Bi...

This week’s guest is Leo Anna Thomas, (they/them) who has twenty years’ experience in the Art Department and six as Standby Art Director on projects such as SMALL AXE, TRIGONOMETRY, HIS DARK MATERIALS and BLACK MIRROR. 

They are also the first wellbeing facilitator for the Film and TV industry. Having experienced bullying firsthand they stepped away from the industry in 2009 to look after their mental he...

This week’s guest is Farhana Bhula, the Head of Creative at Film4, where she  has overseen production on a mix of projects from debut to established filmmakers. 

Those projects include How to Have Sex by Molly Manning Walker, Layla by Amrou Al-Kadhi and All Of Us Strangers by Andrew Haigh starring Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott.  

She joined Film4 in 2022 from the BFI where she was a Senior D...

This week’s guest is Vicki Brown, the Senior Executive of Sales & Distribution at the BFI. 

Before the BFI she was at Together Films where she was Head of Acquisitions, Sales and Distribution, a company that is one of the leaders in social impact entertainment. She was responsible for setting up the international sales department and oversaw the acquisition of In Camera the first feature from directo...

This week’s guest is Tricia Tuttle, the Head of Directing Fiction at NFTS and former Director of BFI Festivals, where she led on both LFF and Flare. 

She announced her departure from the role in October 2022, after 10 years at the BFI as Festivals Director and Deputy Head of Festivals. Prior to that, she held the post of film and skills programme manager at BAFTA and events producer at London’s The Scrip...

This week’s guest is Uzma Hasan, a producer known for bringing subversive stories to global audiences. 

Her first feature as producer was THE INFIDEL, starring Omid Djalili, David Baddiel and Archie Panjabi. 

Her latest feature film CREATURE - directed by Academy-Award winner Asif Kapadia - is a ground-breaking, genre-busting collaboration with Lawrence Olivier Award winning choreographer A...

This week’s guest is Laura Zempel, an award-winning editor for film & TV based in Los Angeles. 

I invited to Laura to the podcast after binge-watching the series Beef on Netflix earlier this year and being really impressed with everything about that show, but particularly the editing and how it balances the modulating tone and storylines so deftly. 

Laura was nominated for an Emmy for h...

This week’s guest is Clare Baines, the BFI’s first Disability Equality Lead. 

Clare is a blind creative. Unable to recognise her own experience reflected in culture, she uses storytelling to create community and belonging for disabled people. Through comedy and joy, she challenges society's perception of disability, queerness, and all the joyful intersections in between. 

She is the BFI's f...

This week my guest is Cassandra Johnson-Bekoe, a woman who wears many hats - among which are writer, producer, script editor and the current Head of Scripted Development at DARE Pictures. 

After working as a bouncer to fund her Screenwriting certificate from the Met Film School, Cassandra's way into the industry was through the Mama Youth Project in 2016. 

Cassandra was previously senior de...

This week I'm pleased to welcome to Best Girl Grip talent agent Emma Obank. 

Emma joined Casarotto Ramsay & Associates, an industry-leading literary agency representing many of the world’s best-known creatives, in 2014 as an Agent’s Assistant. 

At the age of 26, Emma started building her own list of screenwriters, directors and literary properties; today she represents some of the UK’s ...

This week my guest is award-winning, freelance foley editor and mixer Sophia Hardman. 

Sophia studied Sound Technology at The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts and started out her career at Twickenham Studios as an intern 9 years ago. 

Since then Sophia has worked on a wide range of projects, from high-end TV dramas to Oscar-nominated feature films. Her credits include THE OUTFIT, HOU...

This week's guest is producer Helen Gladders.

I became aware of Helen’s work through the 2016 short film RHONNA & DONNA, directed by Daina O. Pusic, and then I kept seeing her name popping up everywhere and knew she was a producer to watch. 

More things you might want to know about Helen:  

She is a graduate of the National Film and Television School having done their MA in Producing fo...

This week my guest is the wonderful Eve Gabereau.

Eve is someone whose work and ingenuity I became aware of quite early on in my own career and she is someone I have wanted on the podcast for a good while.

Eve is the Founder and Managing Director of Modern Films, a London-based, female-led, social issues-driven production, distribution and event cinema company. It was founded in 2017 and si...

This week my guest is producer Jeanie Igoe. 

Jeanie’s big break came when she landed a role at A24, where her credits as a production executive include Barry Jenkins’ MOONLIGHT, Trey Edwards Shults’, IT COMES AT NIGHT, Bo Burnham’s EIGHTH GRADE and Robert Eggers’ THE LIGHTHOUSE. She also served as a producer on their TV series RAMY, and a co-producer on David Lowery’s THE GREEN KNIGHT.

She ...

This week I’m thrilled to be chatting with film critic, broadcaster, podcaster and now author Hanna Flint, about her path into the film and media industry, as well as how her new book STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER was born.

Having started out in various journalism and media roles for the likes of MailOnline, Metro and OK! Magazine, Hanna has since become a prolific film critic and features writer, with bylines...

My guest this week is the incredibly talented and prolific sound designer and mixer Ines Adriana.

Ines studied for an MA in sound design at NFTS and has been credited on over 40 projects since 2020, including some incredible short films like Ruth Greenberg’s RUN, Molly Manning Walker’s, GOOD THANKS, YOU?, Theo James Krekis’ PRAM SNATCHER, Nia Childs’ HOME, as well as documentaries such as THE CATHEDRAL a...

This week, my guest is music supervisor Lucy Bright. 

Lucy started out at Mute Records working with artists such as Nick Cave and Depeche Mode, before moving to Warner Classics for six years and then leaving to manage composer Michael Nyman. She joined the film and TV department of publisher Music Sales (now Wise Music) in 2008 and worked there for a decade. In 2020 she launched her own music publishing ...

Olive Nwosu is a Nigerian filmmaker, a BAFTA Pigott 2020 Scholar, an Alex Sichel Fellow at Columbia University School of the Arts, and one of four ‘African Promises’ directors selected by the Institut Français.

She has directed two award-winning short films: TROUBLEMAKER and EGÚNGÚN (MASQUERADE), both set in Nigeria and which have screened in numerous film festivals, including Sundance, the BFI London Fi...