Esther has been working towards her third short ‘Vladimir’ which has secured funding from Quad in Derby (http://www.derbyquad.co.uk). It’s a love story about an ageing pair of artists who are reunited after 50 years separation and the desire to rebel against the system is rekindled. She’s working on getting the script to it’s best this autumn so that shooting can commence as soon as possible. She’s also been selected and been taking part in iFeatures which has been a big commitment this summer. The process to be selected was fairly rigorous and they have taken part in a summer residency and an intensive development programme to take an initial idea through to treatment stage in six weeks. She says “it’s been in intense. Just now we have submitted our materials and are waiting for the next big ‘pitch’”. 16 teams will be reduced to 8 in October and she says “We just have to try our best to get through to the next phase and hope the panel see the excitement and potential of our proposal”. You can find out more about Esther’s iFeatures project here: http://ifeatures2.co.uk/the-summer-child.html

Esther’s short film ‘Cake’ was part of Underwire 2011’s programme and she says “the experience of taking part in Underwire last year was very affirming because the programme was strong, bold and fresh; it was probably the festival I attended last year partly because of it’s scale and partly because of the quality of the work which was so much better, I felt, than at other bigger festivals. She noted “ it was easier to network because it felt friendly and accessible, yet artistically the programmers demonstrated that it’s not down to lack of talent or ability that films by women don’t get wider exposure rather a failure of true vision and imagination on the part of festival organisers”.