Awardees announced for the third round of the Miles Ketley Memorial Fund

Abraham Adeyemi is a multi-award-winning writer-director from South London. His directorial debut 'No More Wings' world premiered and won best narrative short at Tribeca Film Festival. He recently completed Film 4-backed short 'Chasing the Night' (best film, S.O.U.L. Fest). His writing is genre-agnostic, with a focus on complex, nuanced characters seen through a lens of empathy and grace.

Alice Russell’s first short film 'Men Buy Sex' won the SIMA Creative Activism Award as well as Vimeo Staff Picks Best of the Month. Her debut feature documentary 'If the Streets Were on Fire' had its world premiere at BFI London Film Festival, was broadcast on BBC Storyville, and had a limited theatrical release. It was nominated for four British Independent Film Awards where it won Best Feature Documentary and the BIFA Raindance Maverick Award and was also longlisted for BAFTA Outstanding Debut 2024. She was most recently selected for BAFTA Breakthrough.

Alix Eve (they/them) is an award-winning British writer and director based in Brighton. Alix’s short films have been in competition at Leeds International Film Festival, selected for legendary LGBTQ+ US festival Outfest LA as well as numerous UK BAFTA and BIFA recognised festivals including BFI Flare and London Short Film Festival. Alix was a participant on the prodigious Channel 4 Screenwriting programme and recently they were commissioned by Penguin Random House to write audio stories. They are currently in development on their debut feature and their next short. 

Arwa Aburawa is an artist and filmmaker dedicated to exploring race, migration, the environment and other ongoing legacies of colonialism. Together with Turab Shah, she also co-founded Other Cinemas, an award-winning project based in Brent which is dedicated to supporting Black and non-white communities through free film screenings and a free, year-long film school. Works by Aburawa and Shah have been exhibited at LUX, Humber Street Gallery, Phillida Reid Gallery and as part of the Brent Biennial in 2022. Festival screenings have included CPH:DOX, Dokufest, London Short Film Festival, and Blackstar, where they received the award for Best Short Documentary in 2024 and 2025.

Edem Kelman is a French-born, British writer-director of Togolese and Cameroonian heritage. He graduated from UCL with a degree in Philosophy. His first short film, 'Princess', was longlisted for the BIFA for Best British Short Film. Subsequently, he has been developing his debut feature, 'Chairman', backed by FILM4 and shooting in 2025-26. Edem focuses on pushing stories from the African diaspora towards the realms of romance and spirituality, whether through childhood memories or contemporary life experiences. Edem was named a Screen Star of Tomorrow in 2021.

Georgia Kumari Bradburn is a filmmaker and curator based in London. She is a member of the Neurocultures Collective, through which she co-directed 'The Stimming Pool', and a co-founder of the curatorial collective Stims. Georgia has previously been a regular co-host of the Autism Through Cinema Podcast and a regular Relaxed Screening curator and presenter at the British Film Institute.

Gianni Esporas is an artist and filmmaker based in Glasgow. Her practice stems from utilising hair as an abject material. When this component is extracted from the source, it generates questions around colonial hierarchies, the white gaze and postcolonial futures to the surface. She has previously shown work at Spectra Festival and Alchemy Film and Moving Festival.

Marley Morrison is an award-winning British filmmaker with a background in music videos before her move to film and television. Her short films 'Leroy' and 'Baby Gravy' were both nominated for multiple awards, including Underwire Festival’s Screenwriting Award and the Iris Prize Best British Short and Youth Jury Awards. In 2021 Marley won a commission with Film London's Microwave scheme and completed her first feature film, 'Sweetheart', starring Nell Barlow and Jo Hartley. 'Sweetheart' was longlisted for a BAFTA and won several awards including two BIFAs, Best International Feature at Inside Out Toronto and the Audience Award at Glasgow Film Festival. She is currently developing her own original projects for film and TV.

May Ziadé is a London-based French-Lebanese filmmaker, film worker, and co-founder of Other People’s Films, a production company interested in moving image work and conventional cinema that plays with form. Her work engages with the recovery and discovery of subaltern histories through archives, examining the tensions between fact, fiction, and political and emotional projections. In addition to filmmaking, May works as a Post Coordinator and is training to become a film restoration specialist.

Raheela Suleman is a London-born and based writer and director. She explores ‘the unseen’ in both her written and visual work. Her films have screened at Tate Britain, the BFI, ICA, Genesis Cinema, All Points East Festival (2018), LUX Moving Image, Tate Modern Lates (in response to Kandinsky’s Blue Rider exhibition), and RALLY Festival 2024. She is an alumna of Barbican Young Poets and Chisenhale Gallery. Her film 'SABR' (2023) premiered at the London Short Film Festival 2024. She is a recipient of The Uncertain Kingdom’s Belief Grant 2024.

''I am Robin Elliott-Knowles and I am an artist. I am passionate about history, LGBTQ+ people, feminism, myth and legend and I put all these themes into my work.” Robin Elliott-Knowles is an associate artist of The Neurocultures and Project Artworks Collectives. He graduated in summer 2021 with a 2:1 in Fine Art Degree from Sussex Coast College, having won the Roland Fiddy Award for Drawing. His art practice largely involves painting, drawing, and creating graphic-novel-like illustrations, all considering key themes of intersectionality, colonialism and transgenderism. Robin is also the curator of the B-Movie Fan Club, a monthly screening at the Electric Palace Cinema in Hastings running for more than 12 years, sharing cult horror and sci-fi films with a dedicated audience. He also programmes the Neurodiverse Season alongside the Wolfgang Collective who are supported by Eggtooth, AMAZE, Project Artworks, The Roebuck Centre and Oska Bright Film Festival. Robin has just completed an Arts Council funded Develop Your Creative Practice project ‘Alternative Histories’. “I am autistic, something which informs my view on the world around me.”

Theo Panagopoulos is a Greek-Lebanese-Palestinian filmmaker based in Scotland. His work explores themes of collective memory, displacement, fragmented identities and archives. He has directed multiple short films that have screened in reputable festivals such as Sundance, IDFA, London Short Film Festival, True/False, Hot Docs among others. His most recent film, 'The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing' won Best Short Film at IDFA 2024, the Short Film Grand Jury Prize at Sundance 2025 and was nominated for a BAFTA. He is currently completing his PhD research on colonial film archives connected to 1930s Palestine.

Tolu Stedford has over 20 years’ industry experience and has producer, writer and associate director credits across TV, film, and the stage. As the former CEO of the Independent Film Trust, she has supported and developed BAFTA-winning and Oscar-nominated talent and projects created by marginalised creatives. Tolu is a co-founder of Story Compounds, a dynamic film, TV, and immersive media production company and consultancy with a particular emphasis on sharing the untold stories of the global majority that resonate globally. Story Compounds has several projects in commissioned development. Tolu recently completed her debut documentary 'The Medallion', commissioned by BFI Doc Society. 'The Medallion' has noteworthy official selections and has been acquired by The New Yorker (Conde Nast Entertainment) for worldwide distribution. Film London has recognised Tolu as a promising industry leader as part of the Breaking Glass Ceiling 23 cohort, partnered with Jay Hunt (APPLE TV Creative Director) and Eva Yates (Director of BBC Film). Tolu is also a thought leader in the area of advocacy for better representation and access for underrepresented creatives, a BAFTA Connect member, a British Screen Forum Future Leader, a Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre Industry Champion, a Film and TV Charity IPP panel member, a Reclaim the Frame advisory board member and a KIFF Film Festival jury member as well as a member of the ScreenSkills Film Council. Through all Tolu’s work, she has advocated for improved representation and accessibility for underrepresented creatives and the privilege of hosting and speaking on policy matters. Her insights and contributions have featured in publications including British Cinematographer, Screen Daily, Variety, Deadline and Broadcast magazine.