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Curation & writing

For about six years I wrote about film, mostly for Seventh Row (where I was Executive Editor), with a bit of freelance work going to outlets like Cinema Year Zero, Curzon Journal, Little White Lies, The Film Stage, Girls on Tops, etc. I don’t do that so much anymore, although I’m always open for commissions if you’d like to approach me about writing something.

If I ever feel like putting pen to paper (cursor to screen?), I tend to do it on this newsletter. That’s also where I usually share new writing, curation, or filmmaking work, as well as on Instagram and sometimes Twitter.

On this page you’ll find a few key snapshots of my work curating film, speaking about film, and writing about film.

Creative nonfiction film

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A key interest of mine as a filmmaker and as a curator is 'creative nonfiction film', which I define as any documentary that aims to tell a story and/or express a point of view, rather than simply to educate and inform. In 2024, I started The Creative Nonfiction Film Weekend, a (hopefully ongoing) film festival that celebrates everything documentary can and should be. In our inaugural year, we held the UK Premiere of Zia Anger’s My First Film, Luke Lorentzen’s A Still Small Voice, and more, and we hosted a run of Charlie Shackleton’s VR performance As Mine Exactly. Watch this space for the next edition (; The festival sprung from the research I did on ‘creative nonfiction’ that started in 2021 when I co-edited the book Subjective Realities: The Art of Creative Nonfiction Film, for which I interviewed filmmakers such as Robert Greene and Kirsten Johnson. That book also influenced my 2022 short film Papercut.

 

Other writing and curation: 

  • 2022 – Saeed Taji Farouky: ‘Cinema plays a big part in our constructions of the political world’ (career profile) for Seventh Row

  • 2022 – ‘Down with the solo author!’: The making of Framing Agnes (essay and interview) for Seventh Row

  • 2022 – I Didn’t See You There shows you the world through a disabled filmmaker’s eyes (review) for Seventh Row

  • 2021 – Welfare (podcast episode) for the Wiseman Podcast

  • 2021 – ‘A kind of exorcism’: Angelo Madsen Minax on making North by Current (interview) for Seventh Row

  • 2021 – The Creative Nonfiction Film Workshop (curated series of online workshops and screenings) for Seventh Row

  • 2021 – No Ordinary Man review: Transgender history gets illuminated in vital documentary (review) for The Film Stage

  • 2021 – Lynne Sachs on Film About a Father Who and a career of personal filmmaking (career profile) for Seventh Row

  • 2021 – The case for Bo Burnham: Inside as creative nonfiction (essay) for Seventh Row 

  • 2021 – Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy: Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers on her vital new documentary (interview) for Seventh Row

  • 2020 – Dreams of a Life (essay) for Cinema Year Zero

Mike Leigh

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As part of my wider interest in British cinema, Mike Leigh is a figure I have long admired and researched. In 2019, I co-edited the book Peterloo in Process: A Mike Leigh Collaboration, the first book to take a 360° look at Leigh’s unique filmmaking process. While other books have talked extensively to the man himself, our book included not just interviews with him but with his key collaborators (cinematographer, costume designer, productions designer, makeup and hair designer, and of course, actors). Now, in advance of his new film Hard Truths, I was asked to be a repeat guest and consultant on an upcoming podcast retrospective of Leigh’s work. That podcast series will be rolled out in early in 2025.

 

Other writing and curation:

Kelly Reichardt

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Kelly Reichardt is a favourite filmmaker of mine, and I’m proud to say that I co-edited the first non-academic book on her work, Roads to Nowhere: Kelly Reichardt’s Broken American Dreams. For that book, I conducted a few career-spanning interviews with Reichardt and spoke to many of her collaborators, including Jon Raymond and Lily Gladstone. I also wrote essays on several of her films, such as First Cow, Certain Women, and Old Joy. Plus, when I was at Seventh Row, I helped bring a Reichardt mug and shirt into the world, which I still use regularly.

 

Other writing and curation:

  • 2022 – Kelly Reichardt (magazine feature) for Beneficial Shock

  • 2021 – First Cow and the work of Kelly Reichardt (podcast episode) for Girls on Film

  • 2020 – Certain Women (podcast episode) for Intermission

  • 2020 – Lockdown Film School with April Napier & Grace Snell (livestream masterclass) for Seventh Row

  • 2020 – Review: Kelly Reichardt's First Cow and dreamers thwarted by capitalism (review) for Seventh Row

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