BFI NETWORK Midlands Directors Lab 2026 Cohort.

We are excited to announce the ten directors selected for our 2026 Midlands Directors Lab. Our class of 2026 joined us last weekend in Nottingham for two-days of learning and networking to develop their directorial skills and gain insights to support them in the next steps of their creative careers.

The talented cohort of filmmakers was joined by a series of guest speakers for  Q&As and workshops exploring the skills needed for the next steps in a director's career. We also took a trip to Nottingham Trent's Virtual Production Studio to explore new opportunities built through technology. We had a focus on creating sustainable careers for directing when you already have a few short films under your belt, ranging from television to getting your feature made.

Our Guests included:

• Jack King and Hollie Bryan (BAFTA-nominated Writer/Director and Producer of The Ceremony)
• Joseph Willis (Development Assistant at Warp)
• Alastair Clarke (Wellington Films, Producer of Sister Midnight)
• Moin Hussain (Director, Sky Peals)
• Sarmad Masud (Director, My Pure Land & Boarders)
• Owen Tooth (Director, Eastenders)
• Rebekah Fortune (Director, Learning to Breathe Under Water)

She is acclaimed for her BAFTA and Oscar-qualified short Fifty-Four Days and her award-winning debut book This Thread of Gold. Her first documentary Swim Sistas is narrated by Naomie Harris and recently premiered at Oscar qualifying DOC NYC. She is currently developing her first animation film, To My Daughter and her debut feature film Black Samphire. She can be seen as Miss Timmons in Bridgerton S4 and other upcoming acting credits include The Librarians (TNT), The Capture (BBC/Netflix). In 2022, she was named to Forbes 30 Under 30: Entertainment.

He began his career as an actor, appearing in the BAFTA-winning film Pride, before making his directorial debut with The Silent Child, which won the Oscar® for Best Live Action Short. His directing work has screened at festivals including Tribeca, Clermont-Ferrand, and HollyShorts - where he was honoured for his contribution to short film. His shorts have sold to HBO, BBC, Virgin Airlines, Amazon Prime, and Disney+. He is currently developing his debut narrative feature Dust, based on a true story, alongside a feature documentary on the same subject titled Sticks & Shelter. Chris’s commercial directing credits include Huawei’s StorySign campaign, which won seven Cannes Lions (including four Gold), received a Children’s BAFTA nomination, and earned awards from One Show, D&AD, and Eurobest.

She reached the 2nd round at Sundance Screenwriters Lab (2022 and 2025). She is winner of The Jarman Award 2022 in association with Film London and a Connect member of BAFTA. Ndiritu studied at De Ateliers, Amsterdam: with guest tutors including Steve McQueen (filmmaker), Tacita Dean (filmmaker) and Stan Douglas (filmmaker). Her two short films Black Beauty and Becoming Plant, have been screened at prestigious international film festivals including World Premiere at BFI London Film Festival (2022), World Premiere at the 72nd Berlinale (2022), FID Marseille (2021), 16th Curtas Vila do Conde International Film Festival (2021) and nominated for the international New Horizon short film competition at Black Canvas, Mexico. She has just completed her third short starring renowned British actress Hermione Norris.

His films foreground atmosphere as a storytelling force, drawing on the accumulation of detail and the texture of setting in a way that echoes both social realism and a heightened, sensory cinematic language. His BFI NETWORK-funded short The Leerie screened at multiple BAFTA-qualifying festivals, including London Short Film Festival, Flatpack Film Festival and Carmarthen Bay Film Festival, and won the Shooting People: New Shoots Summer Round competition. His most recent film, The Corpse Road, won Best Film and Best Director at the Greenwich Film Festival. He is currently developing longer-form projects for film and television that continue his interest in characters and worlds that sit just beyond easy categorisation.

Spanish and Birmingham-based, her storytelling lives at the intersection of film and digital, grounded in emotional honesty and a bold, modern sensibility shaped by contemporary culture. She has directed four short films, including Hey Moon, selected from over 70,000 submissions for the TikTok Short Film Competition in association with the Cannes Film Festival. Her micro-short Clementine is award-winning and has screened across festivals in the UK.

In 2025, she co-created, directed, and starred in the vertical series Not That Deep, and is currently developing further series-led digital work, with the aim of moving fluidly between digital, film, and TV.

Her BFI-developed and funded short Dream Big has screened at UK and international festivals, including Oscar and BAFTA-accredited Flickerfest and Norwich Film Festival. The film also won Best International Short at the Broad Humour Film Festival.

 He is a self-taught filmmaker, and his tastes match his non-conventional route into the industry. Samona’s first short film was Kindred, 2017 - an experimental film looking at themes of globalisation and the migrant crisis. Samona’s most recent narrative short film is 2023’s “i and i”, a portrayal of male identity starring Jonathan Ajayi and Samuel Adewunmi. The film screened at a number of festivals around the UK and went on to win Best Director at Soul Fest 2024. Samona’s style combines rigorous planning with free-flowing intuition. By consciously creating a safe space, Samona empowers his collaborators to trust in the story and take risks both in front of and behind the camera. Currently, Samona is developing a feature film with Film4 along with a few other projects at earlier stages of development.

Her short NEW MARS (2019) was made on a shoestring budget, winning several awards and was nominated by BAFTA-qualifying film festival Underwire. NEW MARS was acquired by DUST sci-fi channel and had 100,000 views in just the first week of release. BIRD LADY (2020), also made on a micro-budget, starring Eileen Davies (End of the F***ing World), had a successful global film festival run, picking up several awards, including Best Short Film at Dickens Horror Film Festival, Colorado and is now available to watch on Amazon Prime (U.S). Her BFI NETWORK-backed short THE RISING OF THE SAP (2024) starred BAFTA and BIFA-winning actress Joanna Scanlan, Darci Shaw, Brian McCardie and Nicola Harrison. It had its World Premiere at Seattle International Festival in May 2024 and went on to win multiple awards, nominations and film festival selections. Susie is currently developing two genre feature films.

Taylor recently completed his biggest project to date, a short film titled Clause and Effect, starring Richard Blackwood (known for Anuvahood and EastEnders). The film follows a mixed-race West Indian family struggling to come to terms with the recent death of their father and the legacy he left behind.

His commercial work is rooted in strong visual storytelling and emotion-led ideas, while his narrative projects look at exploring morally grey, compromised characters searching for redemption - usually via ill-advised shortcuts. Will is drawn to tense, atmospheric stories that balance style with character, and to worlds where good intentions rarely lead to clean outcomes. His most recent short film “Fuse” premiered at the iconic FrightFest and screened at many other genre festivals all around the world. He’s currently deep in post-production on his follow-up short film “Gaffer” - about a tyrannical Sunday league football coach and his toxic relationships with those around him.