BFI NETWORK: How We Got Our Films Made
Join us for a panel at the Brighton Rocks International Film Festival on Sunday 22 June at 4 PM, exploring the realities of independent film production and navigating funding. It will offer invaluable insights for emerging filmmakers in today’s filmmaking landscape. The session will begin with a screening of three short films, followed by a discussion with the filmmakers, who will share their unique journeys from concept to screen.
The panel will feature:
- Elias Suhail is a British-Moroccan writer and filmmaker interested in stories shaped by silence, memory and cultural inheritance. He works across fiction, creative non-fiction and film, often focusing on overlooked narratives and characters navigating the edges of society. Elias’s debut short film Beneath a Mother’s Feet blends naturalism and surrealism to tell the story of a single mother navigating life in Morocco. Inspired by his own familial narrative, the film has received international recognition, winning the Golden Cave Award at the Tangier International Film Festival, the Juthour Award for Most Promising Filmmaker at the Toronto Arab Film Festival, and both Best First-Time Filmmaker and Audience Choice at the Lift-Off Season Awards.
- Maddie Lock (they/them) is an award-winning queer, non-binary filmmaker and programmer born in Eastbourne, and based in Brighton. They are inspired by seaside histories and minority groups through their own experiences within these communities, and hope to capture these once forgotten (or erased) voices through their films. Maddie was shortlisted for the BAFTA Prince William Bursary 2025, shortlisted and delivered a pitch for the Iris Prize Documentary Film Fund 2024, and was selected for the Short Cut Film Fund 2023/24 by Young Film Network South East. Their short films include Monsters (2023) and Welcome to the Puppet Show: A Day at the Circus (2024).
- Mia Xerri Mondragon is a Creative Film Producer with over 15 years experience across Short Film, Commercials, TV, Documentary and Music Videos for some of the world’s leading brands, channels, agencies and film institutes including BFI, Channel 4, BBC, BBH, Mattel, Hyundai and Samsung. Mia has been featured on BFI’s Short Film Podcast, was selected for BFI NETWORKS South East Emerging Producers Programme and is a reader for BFI NETWORK short film fund and Early Development Programme. Her BFI NETWORK short film X to X directed by Lily Gwynne-Thomas and starring Tanya Reynolds was selected by BAFTA, Oscar and BIFA qualifying festivals.
If you have any questions about the event please get in touch at: bfinetwork@independentcinemaoffice.org.uk