Board & Leadership Team
Find out about the DFC’s Interim Board, Leadership Team and Founder Members. The Interim Board was appointed by the Founder Members in April 2023. Elections for the first elected board will take place in Spring/Summer 2024.
For more information about the DFC’s election process and the roles and responsibilities of its Board and Leadership Team, please read our FAQs and explore our Resources section, including the Co-operative Corporate Governance Code (Co-ops UK, 2019).
Emily joined the Documentary Film Council in February 2023 to project manage the launch of the organisation. Before joining the DFC, she produced the annual documentary funding awards at The Whickers, a UK-based international fund for emerging directors. Prior to that Emily was Film Release Manager at Journeyman Pictures, a global documentary distributor and sales agent and Production Manager at DocHouse, where she was part of the small team that opened the UK’s first documentary dedicated cinema, Bertha DocHouse.
Emily works regularly as a consultant and pre-selector for festivals and funds, including Sheffield DocFest, Open City Documentary Festival and The Grierson Trust. She is currently producing her first feature documentary.
With years of experience in narrative and documentary production in France, Flore joined the core team at Scottish Documentary Institute (SDI) in 2010 to manage the Institute’s various training initiatives and industry events, including the Edinburgh Pitch and the short documentary training programme Bridging the Gap. Flore was appointed Managing Director of SDI in September 2022.
Since moving to Scotland, she has also produced short and mid-length docs, as well as the feature documentary Freedom Fields, directed by Naziha Arebi, which premiered at TIFF in 2018. Flore is on the board of the international lab for creative documentary production EURODOC, and a regular consultant for documentary organisations internationally.
Roisín Geraghty is an independent film producer and industry programmer based in County Mayo, in the North West of Ireland. She currently works as the Head of Industry and Marketplace for Docs Ireland in Belfast, serves as Industry Manager and Programmer for Cork International Film Festival, as well as spearheading the IGNITE Cross-Border Documentary Talent Development Programme. She has worked with various film organisations in Ireland, the UK and the US, including Edinburgh International Film Festival, Belfast Film Festival, GAZE LGBT Film Festival, the Galway Film Fleadh, the Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) and Tribeca Film Festival. Roisín is also a Producer in her own right and an alumni of the Rotterdam Producers Lab (2020), and the Dok Jih:lava Emerging Producers Programme. In May 2023, Roisín was nominated chair of the DFC’s Interim Board.
Dewi Gregory is an experienced producer of feature documentaries at Truth Department. Completed films include the BIFA-winning Orion: the Man Who Would Be King and The Borneo Case, which premiered at IDFA in the Masters section. His 2022 release, Donna, was released in UK & Ireland theatres and longlisted for BAFTA and BIFA awards. His next film Smoking Shores is in production, executive produced by Michael Sheen. He is an EAVE Producers Workshop graduate.
Jessi Gutch is a BIFA nominated writer, award winning director and BAFTA Elevate / BFI Insight producer. Living with incurable ovarian cancer, she proudly identifies as a disabled filmmaker. She is passionate about the intersection between fact and fiction and her slate of short films have screened at BAFTA qualifying festivals. Until The Tide Creeps In was a double award winner at Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2022 – taking home both Best Documentary and Best of Festival. Blind As A Beat also won the Best Experimental Film award at the Women Over 50 Film Festival 2022. Most recently she was awarded BFI Doc Society funding for debut feature Border Town – produced by Tigerlily and shortlisted for the Whickers Film Award 2023.
Zeynep Güzel is a filmmaker, consultant and the head of Doc Station at Berlinale Talents. Zeynep managed the Yeni Film Fund of Turkey between 2015 and 2019. Zeynep directed and produced Come Rain Or Shine (2019). Zeynep works as consultant on storytelling, international grant writing, pitching and co-financing strategies including the Doc Toolbox program at Berlinale EFM, DOK Leipzig Industry and East Doc Program. Zeynep was a fellow of the 2021 Berlin Artist in Residency (AiR) at Nipkow Program with her first narrative feature film “Güneş”. Zeynep has been a senior consultant at the Documentary Association of Europe (DAE) since its foundation.
Jenny joined the documentary screening organisation DocHouse as Producer in 2012, becoming Assistant Programmer in 2015 when the Bertha DocHouse cinema opened – an independently-programmed documentary cinema screen, with a year-round, daily programme of nonfiction screenings and events. She has been the Director and Programmer of Bertha DocHouse since the start of 2022. Previously, Jenny completed an MA in Documentary Research at University of the Arts London, and went on to spend several years working for UK film festivals before starting full time at DocHouse. She programmed the documentary shorts at the London Short Film Festival from 2013 to 2017.
Priscilla has spent the last decade in film exhibition within the Black media sector. She is currently the Managing Director of The New Black Film Collective (TNBFC) – a nationwide network of film exhibitors, educators and programmers of Black representation on screen. She has diversified the organisation into Production, Exhibition, Distribution, Education and PR. Since 2011, Priscilla has established a regular film club, an annual Black History Month programme and co-founded S.O.U.L. Fest at BFI Southbank. The aim is to become the UK’s top agency and resource for Black film and eventually operate on a global level. In 2015’s, TNBFC became the first Black female-led organisation to distribute a film in the UK with Dear White People. The focus for TNBFC is on building a circuit of commercial and community cinemas that will curate a diverse range of titles from the African diaspora. In 2022, she launched TNB XPO, at Picturehouse Central, which showcases Black excellence in Film and High End TV.
Keisha Knight is the Director of Funds at the International Documentary Association (IDA). In this capacity Keisha oversees a portfolio of IDA’s granting programs including IDA Enterprise Documentary Fund, Logan Elevate Grants, Nonfiction Access Initiative and the Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund among other granting programs. Keisha is an arts administrator, distributor, programmer, and educator who is passionate about helping to create and sustain robust and equitable media ecosystems.
Sarah is the Founder & CEO of Together Films, a marketing, distribution, and technology company serving the international film community from our offices in London & NYC. She has acted as the Head of Marketing for leading Film Festivals including Sheffield DocFest (Sheffield, UK), DOC NYC (NYC, US), Human Rights Watch Film Festival (London, UK & NYC, US), and the Athena Film Festival (NYC, US). She is passionate about serving filmmakers to increase their social impact, reach, and revenue for multi-award-winning titles like For Sama, Unrest, The Tale & Roll Red Roll. She also helps a variety of industry and brand clients to optimize their business performance through technology and operational support, such as Sony, and Patagonia. Sarah recently graduated from the prestigious Inside Pictures film leadership course and was selected for the Mayor of London’s International Growth Programme (including trade visits to NYC & LA). Together Films are expanding into international sales in 2023.
Steve Presence is an Associate Professor of Film Studies at UWE Bristol. Outside of his teaching, Steve’s research focuses on the film and television industries and activist film culture, with a particular focus on documentary. He has published widely in these fields in various books, reports and peer-reviewed journals and has led several large UKRI-funded research grants as Principal Investigator. From 2018-2021, as part of the UK Feature Docs project, he facilitated the policy-focused consultations from which the DFC emerged and co-authored the two reports on its findings, Keeping it Real (2020) and Making it Real (2021). Other recent publications include Go West 2! Bristol’s Film and Television Industries (2022) and Contemporary Radical Film Culture: Networks, Organisations and Activists (2020).
Paul Sng is a bi-racial British Chinese filmmaker based in Edinburgh, Scotland whose work focuses on people who challenge the status quo. His work has been broadcast on television and screened internationally, and his feature film credits include Dispossession, Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché (winner of BIFA 2021 Best Documentary, BIFA 2021 Raindance Discovery Award) and Tish (Sheffield DocFest 2023 opening gala film). He is a BAFTA Breakthrough 2022/23 artist.
Christo Wallers is an experimental cinema-maker, post-doctoral film scholar and filmmaker. He is a co-founder of Star and Shadow Cinema, a self-organized, co-operative cinema in Newcastle upon Tyne. He organises an annual film retreat called Losing the Plot in rural Northumberland. He was funded by an SWW DTP award to research his PhD From caves to commons: DIY Cinema in the UK, completed in 2021. In April 2023 he was awarded an AHRC Research Fellowship at Aberystwyth University. Christo’s research documents and explores participatory, activist and co-operative organisational structures within and on the margins of the screen industries. His integrated cinema practice includes making, programming and setting up the social conditions for watching films together. He has been working since April 2022 as a researcher and consultant on the foundation of the DFC.
Sandra Whipham joined Doc Society as a Director in January 2012 and works across all areas of the organisation’s work, with a particular focus on the UK. She oversees the BFI Doc Society Fund, which comprises a features fund, the Made of Truth shorts fund for new and emerging filmmakers, and a talent support programme all enabled by the National Lottery. Previously, Sandra established London Fields Pictures Ltd where she produced and executive produced a range of documentary film and television including multi award-winning Enemies of the People (dir. Thet Sambath/Rob Lemkin). From 2007 – 9 Sandra was Editor, More 4, and commissioned the True Stories international documentary strand.
Joint Acting CEO
Emily joined the Documentary Film Council in February 2023 to project manage the launch of the organisation. Before joining the DFC, she produced the annual documentary funding awards at The Whickers, a UK-based international fund for emerging directors. Prior to that Emily was Film Release Manager at Journeyman Pictures, a global documentary distributor and sales agent and Production Manager at DocHouse, where she was part of the small team that opened the UK’s first documentary dedicated cinema, Bertha DocHouse.
Emily works regularly as a consultant and pre-selector for festivals and funds, including Sheffield DocFest, Open City Documentary Festival and The Grierson Trust. She is currently producing her first feature documentary.
Dr Steve Presence
Joint Acting CEO
Steve Presence is an Associate Professor of Film Studies at UWE Bristol. He led the UK Feature Docs research project from which the DFC developed and is the grant holder of the AHRC seed-funding grant that is supporting the DFC’s development.
Outside of his teaching, Steve’s research focuses on the film and television industries and activist film culture, with a particular focus on documentary. He has published widely in these fields in various books, reports and peer-reviewed journals and has led several large UKRI-funded research grants as Principal Investigator. From 2018-2021, as part of the UK Feature Docs project, he facilitated the policy-focused consultations from which the DFC emerged and co-authored the two reports on its findings, Keeping it Real (2020) and Making it Real (2021). Other recent publications include Go West 2! Bristol’s Film and Television Industries (2022) and Contemporary Radical Film Culture: Networks, Organisations and Activists (2020).
Dr Christo Wallers
Consultant
Christo has been working on the development of the DFC since April 2022, initially as a Research Associate with UWE until January 2023, and as a freelance consultant since then. He has been focusing on organisational design and making sure the co-operative principles are reflected in our governance structure.
Christo is also an experimental cinema-maker, post-doctoral film scholar and filmmaker. He is a co-founder of Star and Shadow Cinema, a self-organized, co-operative cinema in Newcastle upon Tyne. He organises an annual film retreat called Losing the Plot in rural Northumberland. He was funded by an SWW DTP award to research his PhD From caves to commons: DIY Cinema in the UK, completed in 2021. In April 2023 he was awarded an AHRC Research Fellowship at Aberystwyth University. Christo’s research documents and explores participatory, activist and co-operative organisational structures within and on the margins of the screen industries. His integrated cinema practice includes making, programming and setting up the social conditions for watching films together.
Kate Chapman
Communications & Fundraising Officer
Kate joined the Documentary Film Council in February 2024 to assist with communications and fundraising strategy. Alongside her work at the DFC she is a Creative Analyst at Sons of Rigor Films, an independent film financing company based in the UK and the US. In this small team she evaluates narrative and documentary project submissions, contributes editorial feedback to invested projects and works across company strategy and research. Before joining Sons of Rigor, Kate worked in acquisitions for several years at Journeyman Pictures, a global distributor and sales agent.
She studied Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge for her BA and holds an MA in Modern and Contemporary Literature from Goldsmiths College, London. She has lived and worked in Paris and York and is now based in London.
Rebecca is a qualified psychotherapist, clinical supervisor and freelance documentary producer. She founded Film In Mind, a therapy service for filmmakers, in 2018 to address mental health in the film industry. She combines her therapeutic skills with over a decade of documentary production experience to offer consultancies, workshops and therapeutic support to filmmakers working in difficult situations and with vulnerable people. She is also a co-founder of DocuMentality, an international initiative designed to elevate the conversation around mental health in the documentary community. She has been a guest speaker and mentor on panels and at workshops with organisations such as IDFA, Berlinale, International Documentary Association, Video Consortium, WIFTV and Sheffield DocFest.
LINDSEY DRYDEN is an Emmy® award-winning film producer, director and writer based in Austin TX and the UK. She produced Sundance Special Jury Award-winning Unrest (2017, PBS/Netflix), produced Emmy®-winning Trans in America (2018, ACLU/CondeNast them) and executive produced Ahead of the Curve (2020, Starz). She directed Lost and Sound (2012, SXSW), Jackie Kay: One Person, Two Names (2017, Tate Queer British Art), and Close Your Eyes and Look at Me (2009, True/False). She is a co-founder of FWD-Doc: Filmmakers with Disabilities, a proud member of QueerDoc, a 2022 Sundance Institute Documentary Producers Lab Fellow, a BFI Vision Awardee 2020, and a full voting member of the film and TV chapter of BAFTA. She founded Little By Little Films, which specialises in brilliant storytelling by LGBTQ+, women’s and D/deaf and disabled voices.
Christopher Hird is the founder of Dartmouth Films, producers and distributors of independent documentaries. He has previously been the chair of Sheffield DocFest, a trustee of the Grierson Trust and One World Media and the founding chair of Doc Society.
Steve Presence is an Associate Professor of Film Studies at UWE Bristol. Outside of his teaching, Steve’s research focuses on the film and television industries and activist film culture, with a particular focus on documentary. He has published widely in these fields in various books, reports and peer-reviewed journals and has led several large UKRI-funded research grants as Principal Investigator. From 2018-2021, as part of the UK Feature Docs project, he facilitated the policy-focused consultations from which the DFC emerged and co-authored the two reports on its findings, Keeping it Real (2020) and Making it Real (2021). Other recent publications include Go West 2! Bristol’s Film and Television Industries (2022) and Contemporary Radical Film Culture: Networks, Organisations and Activists (2020).
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