For our next DAILIESESSON, double BIFA-winning director Pinny Grylls, BIFA & BAFTA-nominated director Jack King & BIFA-nominated film-maker Paris Zarcilla will each explore the process and journey of crafting their successful micro-budget debut features.

The film-makers will each lead a session that breaks down the technicalities of raising funding for their projects, working closely with their producers and intricately developing their scripts to work within their limited resources.

The session will also interrogate the journey of taking an ambitious micro-budget feature from ideation, production and completion in the current film-making landscape. How do you take your budgetary constraints and transform that into smart, inventive film-making? The film-makers will also dissect the process of finding distribution for their projects, garnering industry attention, strategic marketing plans and navigating the film festival circuit.

PINNY GRYLLS

Pinny Grylls's 2024 SXSW Feature Documentary Jury Prize Winner 'Grand Theft Hamlet' cemented her reputation as a groundbreaking filmmaker. Shot entirely within a a computer game, the film, co-directed with partner Sam Crane tells the story of their attempt to stage a full production of Hamlet inside Grand Theft Auto. Since its release Pinny has won the BFI Chanel Filmmaker Award,BAFTA Breakthrough, two BIFA Awards, a Grierson and 8 other awards at festivals worldwide.

It was released by Tull Stories in UK Cinemas receiving 5 stars from Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian. It was later released in cinemas in the US by MUBI garnering rave reviews including by Anthony Lane in the New Yorker. It can now be streamed on MUBI.

Drawing on her background as an Ethnographer, Grylls consistently explores the deeply human need for connection. This started with her multi-award-winning short 'Peter and Ben’ and is now transitioning into fiction with Rom Com Feature Film 'Signs of Life' - a story that takes inspiration from her journey to learn sign language after her sudden hearing loss in 2016. She is severely deaf, and BSL Level 3.

JACK KING

Jack is a self-taught writer/director & film-maker from Bradford, UK. He started out making narrative music videos for independent and major record labels, and his work racked up repeated Vimeo staff picks and millions of views online.

His microbudget debut feature ‘THE CEREMONY’ premiered at the 77th Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2024 winning the inagural Sean Connery prize for feature filmmaking excellence and was nominated for two British Independent Film Awards, the film was recently nominated for a BAFTA for Outstanding Debut.

His many previous shorts include 'PRINTS’; a film shot on location in Northern Japan and premiered at Clermont Ferrand in 2019 ​before going on to play at festivals worldwide. His most recent short 'PREDATORS’ supported by BFI Network was nominated for best UK short at the London critics circle awards after premiering at BFI London Film Festival in 2023.  Jack is an alumni of BFI NETWORK@LFF, and EIFF talent lab. 

Jack’s next film ’SUNBURN’ was selected for EIFF Talent Lab Connects in 2022 and 'SNOWBIRD’ was recently awarded a development grant from the Great British Sasakawa Foundation. 

PARIS ZARCILLA

Paris Zarcilla is a writer and director of film and television, who aims to create meaningful, profound and genre-bending stories. His debut film, RAGING GRACE, was the winner of the Narrative Feature Jury Award and Thunderbird Rising Award for Best Debut at SXSW 2023.

Paris was part of the 2019-2022 Bafta x Network Crew and was selected for the Network@LFF 2019 Cohort and BFI Flare x Bafta 2021 Mentor Program. In June 2019 he was shadow director on the first season of HIS DARK MATERIALS for BBC Studios.

Paris wrote and directed THE CENTURY EGG, a TV drama for Singapore's StarHub channel under Refinery Media that was released across Asia in March 2020. He is now working on the second film in his RAGE Trilogy.