Maria and her partner, an aspiring politician, live a quiet life in a small town in Northern Ireland. When, one day, she accidentally hits and kills a child from the local Romanian community, her world is irreversibly changed. Maria struggles to come to terms with her new reality as divisions within the community grow deeper, and she begins to lose faith in everything she thought she knew.
Stella Scott is a director based in London. In 2009, Stella directed her first short, FINDING SOL, which was commissioned by Film London and selected for Underwire Film Festival. In 2011 she directed STREET ANGEL which was selected for Vimeo Staff Picks, The Smalls, Frontline and CPH, and in 2017 she wrote and directed REVERIE, written in collaboration with young people across London. Commissioned by Dazed it was selected for Aesthetica, London Short Film Festival, East End Film Festival, Barbican Chronic Youth Festival and Edinburgh Short Film Festival. Her short films have also been commissioned and released by Nowness, Condé Nast and the Tate.
Stella’s current slate includes short films BULLDOZER, co-written with Jess O’Kane in development with BBC Films, VIRTUOSO in production with Rooks Nest, features GRACE and GOING GONE, and TV series THE BOTANIST. She is developing a slate of documentary films including ANASTASIA.
Stella is signed to Pulse Films and has directed documentaries, commercial work and TVC campaigns for clients such as the Spice Girls, RAF, Mulberry, Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Nike, Punchdrunk, Kids Company, Guardian Labs, BBC Storyworks and ellaOne.
You can watch her film Black Country Fusion on the Creative England watch player.
Helen Simmons (Writer)
Helen is a writer and producer. After running the student film festival, Watersprite, during her final year at university, Helen worked as a script reader for Film4, FilmWave and TWC. She has produced several short films, with directors including Kate Herron and Chloe Wicks, which have screened at festivals across the world including Rhode Island, Flickerfest and LOCO. Her debut feature as producer, CHUBBY FUNNY, was released in 2017 and was nominated for a British Independent Film Award and the LOCO Discovery Award. Her second feature, ILKLEY, was selected as part of Great 8 at Cannes and stars Derek Jacobi and Anna Maxwell Martin. Helen’s debut as a writer was the short film F*CK,starring Brett Goldstein and Esther Smith, which earned her a nomination for Best Screenwriter at Underwire Film Festival. The film was selected for Short of the Week and Vimeo Staff Picks, and has now had over 80k views online. Her first feature screenplay, BETTY, is currently out to directors, and she has original TV shows in development with Tiger Aspect and Sona Films. Helen was named a Screen International Star of Tomorrow in 2018 and is a BSAC Future Screen Leader.
Sorcha Bacon is a BAFTA and BIFA nominated producer and founder of Try Hard Films, a company that champions marginalised voices which often aren’t seen on screen. Her most recent shorts include SPARROW (BFI Flare, Underwire), WREN BOYS (BFI London, Sundance, SXSW, Galway) and IF YOU KNEW which premiered in competition at the 2019 Sheffield Doc/Fest. In 2019 she was named one of 25 Lodestars by Film London, celebrating those with promising futures in the UK’s film industry. In 2018, Sorcha was chosen as one of six emerging LGBT filmmakers in partnership with BAFTA and the BFI. She is currently in prep for a new short examining the trauma of sexual violence which is a coproduction with DMC and is in post-production on an experimental multi-platform short with Film4. She has recently been announced as one of 20 filmmakers to be part of the Uncertain Kingdom fund with her short documentary KNOW WHERE SPECIAL. Sorcha’s current slate spans documentary and fiction, often blending the line between the two, including a political documentary in early production shooting in Brazil. When not working in film, Sorcha works internationally as a commercials producer, which she is represented by Casarotto Ramsay & Associates.