Writers announced for BellRock Creative Scotland Screenwriting Workshops
Following an open call to filmmakers and writers based in Scotland, six participants have been selected to take part in BellRock this year.
BellRock 2018 is an intensive mentoring and workshop programme led by Olivia Stewart of Three Rivers Film, and delivered in partnership with Hospitalfield with support from the National Lottery through Creative Scotland’s Screen Fund.
The programme, running for its third year, will offer participants guidance and support towards writing their feature length screenplays. Applicants submitted project ideas and written material, which was reviewed initially by external readers before the final selection was made by Olivia Stewart and Ross McKenzie (Creative Scotland).
Lucy Cash is a moving image artist and filmmaker whose work spans short film, moving image and installation. Drawing on the possibilities of both documentary and fiction, her films explore the edges between the real and the imagined. In 2014 she was the inaugural artist in residence for The Foundling Museum, London. In 2016 she made We Shall Trip the Light Fantastic for Random Acts, CH4, and undertook a year-long film commission with a community in Northumberland to make the film A Long Side. In 2018, her audio fiction, To the Land was installed at Hauser & Wirth, Somerset. Based in Edinburgh, she is currently working on her first feature script as well as a video series with The Department of Feminist Conversations.
Sean Lìonadh is an artist, writer, and filmmaker from Glasgow known for his visual poem, Time For Love, a personal polemic on normality and modern-day homophobia which reached millions of people across the internet. Lìonadh is now developing his first feature film, a relationship-horror about the terror of adolescent intimacy.
Zoё Hunter trained at Central School of Speech and Drama and holds a law degree from Glasgow University. She was a founder member of the critically acclaimed Unpacked Theatre Company. Her individual work has included voice overs for Sony Games; playing Tiger Lilly in National Theatre of Scotland’s Peter Pan directed by John Tiffany; and puppeteering in the first ever UK stage adaptation of Tove Jansson’s Moominland Midwinter. Recently she has featured in Anthony Neilson’s Alice in Wonderland at the Royal Lyceum, in John McPhail’s upcoming zombie musical extravaganza Anna and the Apocalypse and CBBC’s new show Last Commanders.
Thomas McCrudden started writing in prison and later was one of the founders of the charity Positive Prison ? Positive Futures which works with the Scottish Government and individuals in the prison system to reduce re-offending. His plays, Doubting Thomas (2016) and Doglife (2017), made with Jeremy Weller and Grassmarket Projects Theatre Company were presented at Summerhall in Edinburgh as part of the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival. He won the LUSTRUM Award in 2016 and 2017.
Iain Mitchell is a writer/director working across drama, documentary and theatre. His latest short film 12 Point Kill, supported through Scottish Film Talent Network, will premiere at the 2018 Edinburgh International Film Festival and is currently being developed into a feature. Previous shorts include Kittiwakes and Ruby, both of which screened at festivals internationally. Mitchell has written and directed several stageplays and was a member of the Traverse 50 writing attachment. He has a strong background in documentary, specialising in wildlife filmmaking including Land of Ice and Fire and Black Rat Island. Mitchell is due to shoot his next short drama Stagehand this autumn.
James Topham began writing while studying at Cambridge University where he won the Marlowe Society/Royal Shakespeare Company Prize. He took part in the Channel 4 Screenwriting Scheme and has since developed TV and film projects including Painless (2017) with Addictive Pictures; First Person (2017) with Channel 4; Crane (2016) and Orla (2015) with Ridley Scott’s Scott Free; and HR (2013) with ITV Studios. His work focusses on strong, conflicted characters at the centre of intelligent, genre-driven narratives.
The participants will attend three residential workshops at Hospitalfield House between June and October 2018. These will include one-to-one mentoring sessions; group discussions, presentations and masterclasses.
“We are delighted to be hosting BellRock for the third year and seeing the dedication with which the mentors and writers work together during this substantial developmental experience.” Lucy Byatt, Director of Hospitalfield.
About the Programme
This project arises from an identified strategic need for additional support for filmmakers and screenwriters based in Scotland, highlighted within Creative Scotland’s Film Strategy and is a partnership with Producer, Mentor and Script Consultant Olivia Stewart of Three Rivers Film; and Hospitalfield.
Olivia Stewart is the Director of the workshop and is joined by two other experienced mentors Alfredo Covelli and Ian Sellar.