Gabriella Apicella

Underwire co-founder Gabriella is a freelance screenwriter and tutor, and a Director of Euroscript. She teaches at Kingston University, Central Film School London, and regularly works with the BFI Future Film team. Her feature screenplay In This Body is currently in development, and short films that she has written have screened at London Short Film Festival and the Sci Fi London Film Festival.Content

Gemma Mitchell

Gemma is the co-founder of Underwire Festival.

Abigail Addison

Abigail is a freelance arts producer who works with artists and organisations on realising inventive artists’ moving image projects. She is Associate Director at arts agency Animate Projects, where she is currently producing Wellcome Trust supported interdisciplinary project, Silent Signal. Abigail has worked with numerous cultural organisations including Forma, The Bureau, CAMP Films, Lupus Films, the UK Film Council and Arts Council England. She is also on the board of Four Corners, London’s centre for film and photography.

Rebecca Brand

Rebecca Brand is a filmmaker and freelance creative communications professional with extensive experience in event production. She directs and edits short films, showreels and interviews. Her short documentary, The Campaigner, was selected for the 2012 Underwire Film Festival and 2013 London Short Film Festival. She has guest blogged for a number of film websites including Women and Hollywood on Indiewire and DocGeeks, and recently became a regular contributor to Her Film Project. Rebecca produces and hosts the Women in Film and Television (WFTV) quarterly short film series, Show Us Your Shorts, and has been a jury member for a number of short film awards, including Birds Eye View and Sundance London. She previously worked as Head of Communications and Operations for WFTV.

Helen Jack

Until January 2013, Helen was Co-Director of UnderWire, where she found a perfect pairing of her interests in film and feminism. Previous to this, Helen was Director of Operations at Shooting People, where she also worked as Blog Editor for Channel 4’s 4docs. She is currently working as a freelancer across various corners of the film industry.

Cassandra Neal

Cassandra is the former producer of the London Short Film Festival (2013 & 2014) and has previously delivered industry strands for the London Film Festival and East End Film Festival. She currently works at BAFTA, producing programmes including BAFTA Crew and Conversations with Screen Composers at the Royal Albert Hall. She also freelances for British Council Film.

Elhum Shakerifar

Elhum is a creative producer with a commitment to social justice topics, told through the prism of strong intimate stories. Recent credits include award-winning features The Reluctant Revolutionary (Sean McAllister, 2012), The Runner (Saeed Farouky, 2013) and McAllister’s forthcoming BFI/BBC funded A Syrian Love Story. Elhum was one of 4 producers selected for Lighthouse’s Guiding Lights in 2014. Formerly programmer of Bird’s Eye View Film Festival (2012-14), she is now curates freelance, most recently for London Film Festival and Shubbak, and has developed specialist distribution strategies for films including Wadjda (2012, Haifaa Al Mansour). Elhum is a research fellow at the Department of Anthropology at Goldsmiths University, and has taught film production and documentary theory at UEA, UCL, Middlesex University and the Freie Universitat Berlin. She was a British Council Creative Leader in 2011 for her work in the arts and education through Postcode Films, which she co-founded and co-directs.

Chloe Trayner

Chloe was the Festival Producer from 2013 to 2014. She is a freelance festival producer and currently works on the Open City Documentary Festival.