Best Girl Grip bestgirlgrip

The final ever episode!
This week, my first ever guest, Georgia Goggin is back!
As a producer, Georgia has been collaborating with writer/director Dionne Edwards for over a decade under their banner Teng Teng Films. Georgia was nominated for the Breakthrough Producer BIFA for her work on their critically acclaimed debut PRETTY RED DRESS. Their previous film, the celebrated 2016 short WE LOVE MOSES won multiple awards, screened at festivals worldwide, has been licensed by Canal+, Netflix, HBO and is now available on Disney+.
Georgia’s writing and directing credits include BEND, which was backed by BBC Drama and comes to Short of the Week in December 2023, and SORRY FI DISTURB YUH (written by Russeni Fisher) which was nominated for the Outspoken Prize for Poetry in Film. Georgia has a feature in development with The Electric Shadow Company and a TV series with The Development Partnership.
Georgia is an alum of Sundance, EIFF and Rotterdam talent development programmes. She is also Development Executive at The Uncertain Kingdom.
We talk about becoming a writer and director in her own right and a whole host of reflections on making a film during a pandemic, making a creative career and well, making a life…
Plus! Georgia asks me some questions about how the podcast got started, how it’s evolved and what it’s taught me…
 
SHOW NOTES
Find out where you can watch PRETTY RED DRESS
Apply for The Uncertain Kingdom's Short Film Production Fund
Listen to our first conversation!
 

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, alongside her co-writer and producer Cecilia Frugiuele. The film, which Desiree also directed, would star Chloe Grace Moretz and Sasha Lane and went on to win the Sundance Dramatic Grand Jury Prize in 2018. 
Around the same time, Desiree also created, wrote and directed a brilliant 6-part TV show for Channel 4 called THE BISEXUAL, starring Maxine Peake, Brian Gleeson, Naomi Ackie and Desiree herself and all set in London. 
Since 2018 Desiree has been working on a very personal project which we talk about, as well directing episodes of many brilliant TV shows, including RAMY, HACKS and TINY BEAUTIFUL THINGS. 
We talk about a lot, and if you’ve ever read an interview with Desiree you know she’s very good at cutting through the bullshit and this is no exception. We dig into how the past five years have seen her working at a different pace and why that is, we talk about the moments after success and the expectations that were placed on her career, we talk about what it actually means or requires to direct an episode of TV, finding a soulmate in her creative partner Cecilia and why learning and having fun is at the centre of everything she does…

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 Big Talk Pictures and Sixteen Films before spending 10 years at Pulse Films, where she led the company’s expansion into scripted film and TV, developing GANGS OF LONDON for Sky AMC. 
We talk about how Paul Greengrass introduced her to the film industry, her love of stories and reading and how that led her towards development, demystifying what it means to be a Head of Development, her time at Pulse Films and how she helped to redefine what Pulse did or could do, and her shift towards television, and what authored TV looks like, as well as her work at See-Saw Films. 

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 health. They returned in 2013 and as part of that return they began to develop the role of the wellbeing facilitator alongside 6ft from the Spotlight, where they became a full-time facilitator as of 2020. 
We speak about their induction into the world of film through the medium of VHS, a full circle 28 Days Later moment, the role of the standby art director and why it’s not just standing by to become an art director, and their work on the film Pride, and then we segue into the work Leo has being doing more recently in the world of wellbeing and mental health, and how they’ve pioneered a new role in the industry that seeks to prioritise care, calm and compassion to ensure that film & TV productions can be more mentally healthy places to work. 
If anything you hear in this conversation chimes with you I urge you to check out the show notes, which contain lots of links to further resources and websites about wellbeing facilitation.  
TW: Please note, that today’s conversation includes mention of suicide and bullying, so listener discretion is advised.
 
SHOW NOTES:
Film & TV Charity Looking Glass Survey
Film & TV Charity Whole Picture Toolkit
6ft From The Spotlight
Listen to Leo’s podcast Mental Health in Film
Become a Mental Health First Aider
Find out where to watch the film Pride
Find out where to watch the film Pretty Red Dress
Watch the trailer for Saltburn 

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 Development and Production Executive and worked on Scrapper by Charlotte Regan, Pretty Red Dress by Dionne Edwards, Reggie Yates’ Pirates, Aml Ameen’s Boxing Day, debbie tucker green’s ear for eye, Ben Sharrock’s Limbo and Aleem Khan’s After Love.  
Prior to the BFI, she was head of development at Wildgaze Films (Brooklyn, An Education) and a development executive at Endor Productions. She has also produced shorts and a micro-budget feature.
We talk about how she discovered development was a thing and why she felt suited to it, her roles at Wildgaze Films and the BFI Film Fund, the differences between working for a public funding body and a public service broadcaster, what she thinks makes a good debut feature and how she creates a good working relationship with filmmakers, the impetus behind the recent Future Takes scheme and the book she thinks is a must-read if you work in development…
 
SHOW NOTES
Buy Farhana’s book recommendation ‘A Swim in a Pond in the Rain’
Watch the trailer for ‘How To Have Sex’
Discover the nine projects Film4 and BFI are funding through the Future Takes programme
Read an interview with Farhana and the development team at Film4 
Find out where to watch Scrapper
Find out where to watch Pretty Red Dress
 

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 director Naqqash Khalid. 
Prior to her arrival at Together Films, Vicki was the Director of International Sales at Altitude. At Altitude, she represented such diverse and critically acclaimed titles such as Rocks (by Sarah Gavron), Ali & Ava (by Clio Barnard), The Princess (by Ed Perkins), Calm With Horses (by Nick Rowland) and Diego Maradona (by Asif Kapadia). 
Vicki has also previously worked at Focus Features International where she handled sales on numerous titles including Cloud Atlas and Moonrise Kingdom. 
In addition, she seeks to champion under-represented voices in the film industry. Vicki is the co-founder (alongside former podcast guest Chi Thai) of MilkTea Films, an organisation which looks to shine a spotlight on East and Southeast Asian talent through screenings and events with a goal to building inclusion, communities and audiences. MilkTea was announced as a Film London Lodestar in 2023 and in 2022 and 2023, was nominated for a Big Screen Award.
All of which to say, Vicki is incredibly hardworking and a wonderful person to have in this industry, and therefore on this podcast. We talk about how she unearthed sales as the aspect of the film industry that she could be good at, what sales agents actually do, how she copes with the intensity of festivals and markets, working at Altitude when they were just starting out, how she knows when it’s time for a change, founding MilkTea and why that brings her joy, and what better East and Southeast Asian representation in cinema could look like. 
 
SHOW NOTES
Listen to Vicki's podcast 'Roll Credits'.
Find out more about MilkTea Films and their upcoming events. 
Listen to my episode of Best Girl Grip with Chi Thai.
Find out where to watch Celine Song's film Past Lives.