CONSULTING
Speaking and JURIES
Manon has spoken at events organised by Film London, the Edinburgh Film Festival, Screen International, Shooting People, and the BFI Net.Work among others. She was also part of the 2017 Dinard Film Festival Short Film Jury.
Chiara has been asked to sit on panels for LOCO (London Comedy Festival), Open City Documentary Festival, to give talks for schemes organised by the Film London Equal Access Network, and to be part of the jury for the ShortCom comedy festival competition.
Co-productions Consulting
ManoN produced the critically-acclaimed coproduction "La Fortaleza" by Jorge Thielen Armand, bringing together platform Breaker, Berlinale's World Cinema, France's Nouvelle Aquitaine regional fund, and Colombia's FDC minority coproduction fund; working with coproducers Viking Films in the Netherlands, In Vivo in France, Mutokino in Colombia, and La Faena Films in Canada. Manon is currently developing several more coproductions and can advise on international productions wanting to work with the UK, as well as UK productions looking for international financing.
Chiara is in charge of new talent at Ardimages UK and has established relationships with all major UK talent agencies. She can advise international productions wanting to work with UK talents, or wanting to translate their development materials to a native English-speaker standard.
scheme running
Mother tongues award
After taking part in a variety of schemes, including iFeatures, Film London Microwave and the Creative England Creative Producers Initiative, in 2020 Manon and Chiara created and started running their own scheme, the Mother Tongues Award, working with producer Jack Tarling. The initiative is backed by UK distributor Curzon, international sales agent Charades and creative agency Intermission Film.
The Mother Tongues Award is a development scheme for feature films set in the UK, in which the dialogue is in a language other than English. It was created to develop feature films that are written, produced and directed by UK residents, telling stories that take place in diverse cultural communities existing within the UK.
Over the course of one year, the team came up with the idea, attached the financial partners and launched the scheme, which gathered significant industry interest and praise. The inaugural year opened for applications in November 2020, attracting over 100 applications, from which the team initially shortlisted 10 projects and, in May 2021, selected the three winning projects: MOTHERS written by Mo Ahmed, KNEECAP, written and directed by Rich Peppiatt and VAPOURS, written and directed by Adina Istrate.
Currently, Manon and Chiara are working on the projects alongside Jack Tarling, supporting the filmmakers as producers or exec producers. Find out more about the Mother Tongues Award on the scheme's website and Twitter account.
Teaching
Manon has organised workshops for the British Council, mentoring sessions for Film London, and was a Creative Access mentor. She was also a visiting lecturer at Regent's Park University.
Chiara is a visiting tutor at the National Film And Television School and Kingston’s School Of Art and has lectured at a number of universities and film schools including Regent’s Park University, Central Film School, Southbank University and Met Film School.
