Six young directing talents journeyed up to the Edinburgh International Film Festival as part of 4Talent and Film4’s Directors’ Lab. We asked a couple of them to give us a potted glimpse at what they’re up to.

“We started off the day with Mia Bays, the independent producer and Microwave head don,” begins Charles-Henri Belleville. “Mia talked passionately and insightfully for 90 minutes on exactly how the food chain in the film industry works. Very revealing.”

“We then had an interactive session with JJ Lousberg (UKFC), Danny Perkins from Optimum Releasing and Sam Horley, a sales agent. This was superb - we split into teams, each were given a distribution company and their budgets. We had to purchase two films from Sam that made the most money, with Danny supporting us. Sam is tough and Danny is a great negotiator. Very educational, but also had everyone in the room in stitches as us directors pitched our hearts out!”

“Amy and I rocked,” adds Hope Dickson Leach [Day 1]. “We got This Is England and Ratcatcher - I like to think it was because of the photo-shoots we had planned for Shane Meadows in ID magazine…”

“We had an amazing meal at Howies - great fun meeting producers over the best soup I have ever had. Honey and parsnip: sensational,” Charlie continues. “Our fireside chat was with Caroline Cooper-Charles from Warp X and Donkey Punch director Olly Blackburn. It’s clear Warp X has something very special going on, and Olly is destined for great things - he really inspired us all with his humility. If you ever meet him, ask to hear his story about Wild Turkey at sunset…”

Charles-Henri has directed promos for Ashley Walters, MTV and Pathé. His first micro budget feature The Inheritance (2007) was nominated for Best British Feature at Raindance Film Festival 2007 and subsequently won the inaugural Raindance Award at the British Independent Film Awards 2007. Charles-Henri was nominated for Best New Director at the BAFTA Scotland New Talent Awards 2008 and for the 4Talent Awards 2007. He is currently in post-production on his next feature Midnight Madness, a basketball documentary.

Six young directing talents journeyed up to the Edinburgh International Film Festival as part of 4Talent and Film4’s Directors’ Lab. We asked a couple of them to give us a potted glimpse at what they’re up to.

“Day one and we’re off with a bang,” begins Hope Dickson Leach. “We began the day meeting all those people it would take months to see you in their office, and it was great to hear them talk. I’m not going to tell you what they said, as that’s classified and I’d have to find you and kill you all, but believe me, I wasn’t the only one taking notes and raising my hand to ask the questions.”

“We’re all here with a mission, and that mission is to make movies. Despite the fact everyone is doing their best to convince us that making a first feature is impossible, we all know it happens, so why can’t it be us?”

“All six of us are writer-directors and we were lucky enough to meet talented and busy screenwriter David Nicholls (Starter for Ten, And When Did You Last See Your Father?) who filled us with inspiration about how receptive the industry is becoming to involving writers in more than just the opening stages of the film-making process.”

“And then off to the beautiful castle-side apartment for a ‘fireside chat’ with Isabelle Coixet (Elegy) who told us, like your favourite pair of trainers that just keeps on giving, to just do it. With that in mind we were off to the premiere of the Warp X produced (debut film) Donkey Punch, and then their kick-ass party. Which leaves me feeling quite warped myself as I dash off to today’s fantastic lineup. More from us tomorrow.”

Hope made her short film The Dawn Chorus (2006) as part of her MFA program at Columbia University. Her film was selected for Sundance Film Festival 2007, Edinburgh International Film Festival 2006, London International Film Festival 2006, and won Best Narrative Student Short at Austin Film Festival 2006. In 2007 Hope was named as a Star of Tomorrow by Screen International and as one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film by Filmmaker magazine. She is currently developing her first feature film English Rose, about a teenage girl who hates Princess Diana, which was featured in the Berlinale Project Talent Market 2008.

“We are thrilled by the success of our two very British films currently in the cinemas – Mike Leigh’s charming Happy-Go-Lucky and Martin McDonagh’s irreverent In Bruges. Martin, famous for his playwriting, initially made a short film with Film4 so we were delighted to work with him on his first feature. Each year we strive for a mix of first-timers and experienced film-makers returning to Film4.

I am desperate to find a brilliant, ambitious and yet low-budget British sci-fi. It’s also really hard to find incredibly taut British thrillers that are not just aping US films – we would love to find one not set in the usual environs: perhaps an NHS hospital, or a boarding school?

Film4 is all about innovation, supporting the film-maker’s voice, coming at British stories from new perspectives, finding stories that resonate strongly with our contemporary British audience. We’ll continue to be driven by these principles, building on our already strong focus on new talent and film-makers from diverse and regional backgrounds.

We offer many of the best opportunities for new talent in the country, in terms of the films we produce – both short films (through the Cinema Extreme scheme), low-budget first features (via Warp X), and other first-time film-makers we support outside these schemes. We also run projects with new theatre writers via Paines Plough and the Traverse theatre; have a new writers’ lab for writers from diverse backgrounds with B3 Media, and back one or two projects in development from film-makers at the NFTS every year. We’ll continue to concentrate on our new talent initiatives for both directors and writers to secure our position as the home of new film talent in the UK.

There’s already an increasing awareness that British films telling contemporary British stories can work for British audiences in the cinema – look at This Is England – and it would be great to see more contemporary-set films taking risks coming from the industry as a whole. Certainly the US is more than aware of the huge talent pool in the UK film industry right now, so our job is to keep supporting new voices whilst trying to entice our successful British film-makers home now and again!”

Katherine Butler: Head of Development, Film4

Next on 4 is Channel 4’s vision for the future. Fresh talent, fresh perspectives, youth, diversity and innovation in all its forms will lead and shape the channel’s content in the years to come. So with our readers in mind, we asked those at the commissioning coalface what’s pushing their buttons in 2008.

Who we spoke to:

Liam Humphreys, Commissioning Editor, Features | Walter Iuzzolino, Deputy Head, Features | Dominique Walker, Commissioning Editor, Factual Entertainment | Alistair Pegg, Editor, Factual Entertainment | Ruby Kuraishe, Editor, Factual Entertainment, E4 | Simon Dickson, Deputy Head, Documentaries | Meredith Chambers, Commissioning Editor, Documentaries | Kate Vogel, Editor, 3 Minute Wonder | Jan Younghusband, Commissioning Editor, Arts & Performance | Shane Allen, Commissioning Editor, Comedy | Andy Auerbach, Commissioning Editor, Entertainment | Matt Locke, Commissioning Editor, Education | Jo Roach, Commissioning Editor, Education | Kevin Sutcliffe, Deputy Head, News & Current Affairs | Camilla Campbell, Commissioning Editor, Drama | Adam Gee, Commissioning Editor, New Media Factual | Aaquil Ahmed, Commissioning Editor, Religion | David Glover, Commissioning Editor, Science | Katherine Butler, Head of Development, Film4 | Ade Rawcliffe, Diversity & Talent Manager | Alison Walsh, Editorial Manager, Disability.

Browse all the responses >

Image by Tom Gaul