Introducing Our Stories to Shorts Cohort

Paven began writing after her girl gang play ENGLANDS LANE gained recognition in 2010. Named Screen International ‘STARS OF TOMORROW’, WORKING TITLE’S residency at Hay Festival. Guiding Lights mentor Simon Beaufoy. BBC VOICES. CH4 screenwriting programme 2022 with BETI her graduation script. 10-week National Theatre attachment. In 2012, after two busy years Paven took a break to have her son, returning in 2019. 

Writer’s rooms: SKINS, ACKLEY BRIDGE. Shadow Scripts: ACKLEY BRIDGE & EASTENDERS. Recently completed writer’s room for Simon Beaufoy/Riz Ahmed/House series and script consultant on a SKY serial. Current projects include ASIAN BABE, an Indian NHS nurse turns to OnlyFans for financial and sexual liberation (West Road Pictures), BFI early film fund MELA (Jude Goldrei). Passionate about telling stories from a fresh perspective alongside putting the Midlands on the map.

Mohamed is a freelance writer based in Coventry with articles published on Black Ballad and AMALIAH. Having studied English and Journalism at Coventry University, Hodan is venturing into screenwriting where she aims to craft stories for young audiences in ways unexpected.

Hayley has received industry recognition for her writing, through an honorable mention from Barnstorm’s BOLT 2022 screenplay contest (Silent Retreat), was shortlisted for Voices of the Future (Offside) and has recently been selected for the Creative Access and Penguin Random House Mentoring scheme, as well as a graduate of the HarperCollins Author Academy Spring 2022. She has also been awarded a Developing Your Creative Practice (DYCP) Arts Council grant to write for children. Her feature-length screenplay, Offside, has recently been selected for The Short List at Barnstorm Fest 2023. 

She is particularly drawn to writing feel-good stories that explore themes of family, from the one you’re born into to the one you make for yourself, and how the characters are searching for what family means to them. Hayley has aspirations to be part of creating content that has the potential to reach a wider audience as a writer across multiple mediums. 

Danny's debut short film 'Mark'd', a creative look at the largely less publicized emotional abuse, quickly found success on the festival circuit, winning the first- & one-off Warner Brothers Short Film Festival, with Tom Hooper calling it a 'powerful and visceral physicalization of a very real issue'. Mark'd went on to amass nearly 1 million views online across all platforms & has since been included in dozens of Domestic Violence Resource packs across the UK. Danny's follow-up short 'Last Dance', a psychological horror went on to have a very successful festival run, being selected & winning awards worldwide including the 'Melies D'Argent' at Razorreel Film Festival & culminating in winning the 'Melies D'Or' for Best European Short Film at the prestigious Sitges Film Festival in 2021.

Anna Mansell is the bestselling author of seven novels, a playwright and emerging screenwriter. A BBC Writersroom Alumnus, and a New Associate with New Perspectives Theatre Company, Anna has a feature in development and her latest theatre piece is currently touring Cornwall.

As well as writing and making Short Films, Freya works as a Production Apprentice for the BBC and has worked on a number of Productions, including ‘Our Guy in Colombia’ for Channel 4, ’The Gadget Show’ for Channel 5, and as a Camera Assistant. Her past films have won national awards at the Into Film Awards (sponsored by Warner Brothers Discovery) and the Moving Image Awards, where she won ‘One to Watch’, (sponsored by the BFI). Freya is in Post-Production for her current short, and is keen to tell stories centred on the theme of hope. She is interested in many areas of Production for the shorts she creates: Writing, Producing, Directing, Camera and Editing.

Ryan is an actor and writer of Jamaican descent, whose work delves into the intricacies of class, sexuality, and race relations within Afro-Caribbean communities through comedy. Ryan was part of the inaugural Sky Comedy Rep Festival with his play 'Boys Who F**k and Cry'. Additionally, his short story 'Safari' was commissioned by BBC Arts and Arts Council England as a short audio drama for BBC Sounds. More recently, he won the DYSPLA Story-makers residency in 2022 with his script 'MAN, CODE', which has recently completed production. It will have its world premiere at the Academy-qualifying Chicago International Film Festival and a UK premiere at the BAFTA-qualifying Aesthetica Short Film Festival.

Carolina Rodrigues is a filmmaker, poet and performing artist who explores the connections between language, gender roles, culture, and feminism. She is inspired by internet culture, folklore tales and the sociocultural and political scene.  

On her artistic practice, there is a reflection on individual characters that represent collective and urgent themes in the social context of the ‘Other’. Other intrinsic themes include technological voyeurism, loneliness vs. identity and competition.  

Carolina completed her degree in Communication Sciences in Lisbon, with a specialization in cinema and television; where she first developed her short films focused on feminist matters. She continued to pursue her academic studies with a master’s in international film production at De Montfort University in Leicester. Since graduating with honours, Carolina has continued to write, direct, and edit various projects, from sci-fi shorts to horrors, in collaboration with other local filmmakers. More recently, her documentary, ‘Bald and Beautiful’, was showcased at the Real Documentary Festival 2023. In Leicester, she has also joined the artistic and literary community where she organizes and attends monthly open-mics and collaborates with the Nottingham Poetry Festival.

Joe is a  writer/director from Nottingham. He has been extremely passionate about cinema his entire life, whether it be the screwball comedies of Howard Hawks or the sci-fi/horror of John Carpenter. He spent his teenage years acting in stage plays and also studied TV and Film production at the Confetti Institute. He then went on to study International Relations and American Studies at the University of Derby, and has recently finished studying for a master’s degree in Psychology at Nottingham Trent. The subjects he studied at university have greatly informed my interests as a writer and storyteller. He has a huge interest in how the cinema of the 20th century reflects the cultural/social climate in which it was made. He also loves historical storytelling and writing period pieces. He is currently directing a short film based on a script he wrote entitled ‘Trial Z42’, and is eager to get as much experience within the industry as he can.