Meet The Team

In 2022 Lily Streames, founder of Essex Film Collective invited director/producer Iain B. MacDonald to talk about his journey from his hometown of Southend-on-Sea to Hollywood California. Little could she have known that in 2025 the two of them together with Essex based filmmaker Charles Sharman-Cox, would have created the Essex International Film Festival.

Their shared vision was to present a film festival dedicated not just to screen great films from around the world, but also to break down barriers within the film industry and to foster inclusivity and diversity.

EIFF27 is delighted to announce that two young Essex based film practitioners, Olivia Bennett and Nathan Hubble have joined the team and together with our esteemed patrons, jury and highly motivated curators, the festival will continue to ensure a powerful platform for filmmakers and film goers alike.

Tickets
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Directors

Iain B. MacDonald

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Lily Streames

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Olivia Bennett

Nathan Hubble

Patrons

Jane Gull

Director / Screenwriter

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Andrew Douglas

Producer / Director

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Charles Sharman-Cox

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Jury

Michelle Farr-Scott

Comedy Producer

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Busayo Ige

Actor / Writer

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Mike Cater

Casting Associate

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Andrew Douglas

Producer / Director

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Jane Gull

Director / Screenwriter

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Joel Wilson

Producer / Director

Hayden Mclean

Actor / Director

Curators

Jane Gull

Director / Screenwriter

DRAMA

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Kate McCoid

Writer / Director

COMEDY

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Ed Ismail

Writer / Actor

SCI-FI & HORROR/ THRILLER

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ANDREW GOOCH

Creative Director / Animator

ANIMATION

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Alison Cahn

Journalist / Artist / Filmmaker

DOCUMENTARY

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ALFIE WILSON

Acting / Film Student

STUDENT

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CHRISTOPHER ROBERTS

WRITER

SCI-FI & HORROR/ THRILLER

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JAMES WEISZ

WRITER & DIRECTOR

LGBTQ+ & EXPERIMENTAL

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David Streames

ACTOR / DIRECTOR

Iain B. MacDonald

Iain B.MacDonald started his career making arts documentaries before winning the Best Short Film award at the Edinburgh International Film Festival which led to his work in Television drama. In the UK he directed a wide variety of projects, from Jed Mercurio’s BODIES to Jane Austin’s MANSFIELD PARK and BBC/Showtime’s EPISODES, for which he was nominated for an EMMY. In 2015 he moved to Los Angeles where he has consistently worked on some of the entertainment world’s best shows including, SHAMELESS, PREACHER and the award winning POKER FACE, on which he served as Executive Producer. Iain’s most recent directorial work is Marvel’s acclaimed DARE DEVIL for the Disney Channel.

Lily Streames

Lily Streames is an actor, writer, producer and director across film, theatre, radio and commercials. In 2021 she won Best Actress at the San Francisco Film Festival for her performance in VIA(DOLO) which was also selected for the BAFTA recognised Aesthetica Festival. Most recently she starred in the award winning short comedy HA’PENNY DIP. When she is not working on film projects her passion has always been to elevate the growth of film in Essex by helping to build a vibrant film community at grassroots level for which she was appointed Cultural Ambassador for Essex.

Olivia Bennett

Olivia Bennett is an actor, writer and composer. Her screen credits include DOCTOR WHO (BBC) and THE DEVIL’S HOUR (Apple TV+). Most recently her film, THE METRONOME, won Best Experimental Short at the New Renaissance Film Festival in London.

Nathan Hubble — Co-Director

Nathan is an actor and filmmaker whose screen credits span BBC, Netflix, Disney+ and Apple TV+. He also works as a creative project manager and AI specialist — including with BBC’s creative technology teams. He brings both a practitioner’s instinct and a systems-builder’s precision to EIFF.

Jane Gull

Jane Gull is drawn to stories that challenge, entertain and shine a light on lives rarely seen on screen.

Her debut feature My Feral Heart became a landmark success, premiering at Cinequest (USA) where it won the Audience Award, followed by its UK premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. The film was broadcast on the BBC, nominated for a BIFA, won a National Film and Television Award and became the most successful cinema-on-demand release of all time through Ourscreen. It was later introduced by Mark Kermode on BFI Player.

Jane’s second feature, Love Without Walls, won Best UK Film at both the Manchester Film Festival and the London Independent Film Festival. After a successful theatrical run, the film is now available on streaming platforms. Her award-winning short Sunny Boy has screened at festivals around the world and was broadcast on Channel 4, Arte TV, and Apple TV.

A committed voice in the film community, Jane is an alumna of the Berlin Talent Campus, the Edinburgh Talent Lab, and the BFI’s Think-Shoot-Distribute programme. She is a voting member of BAFTA and has served on juries for BIFA, Lift-Off, and Entr’2 Marches in Cannes. She is also a Cultural Ambassador for Essex and is honoured to be a Patron of the Essex International Film Festival.

Originally from Essex and now based in London, Jane trained as an actress at the renowned Anna Scher Theatre School. Her early career took her across the globe as a dancer/choreographer before moving into writing and directing for the stage and, ultimately, film.

Jane is currently developing a slate of original film and television projects.

Andrew Douglas

Director

Andrew began his career as an assistant to the internationally acclaimed photographer Snowdon (Antony Armstrong-Jones). He was a magazine photographer for Esquire and The Face and then a director of music videos and commercials. His 2003 documentary, ‘Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus’, won a Royal Television Society award. He made his movie debut with ‘The Amityville Horror’ (2005), the terrifying remake of the 1970s horror classic. In 2013 he produced and directed ‘Uwantme2killhim’ which was nominated for the Michael Powell Award for Best British Feature Film. Most recently his documentary ‘Stroke of Genius’ concerning the tennis rivalry between Roger Federer and Rapha Nadal was nominated for a Sports Emmy Award.

Charles Sharman-Cox

Charles Sharman-Cox is an actor, writer and director for theatre and film. As a filmmaker he worked with Starving Artists Theatre of Los Angeles adapting and directing two of the company’s acclaimed stage plays, LOS ANGELES FEVER DREAM and CALIBAN REMIX. In 2019 he performed and directed Edgar Allan Poe’s chilling short story, THE TELL TALE HEART winning the Best Horror Award at the Cannes Short Film Festival and two Best Actor Statuettes at the Global Shorts Awards in Los Angeles and the Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema in California. His most recent work is the award winning drama IN ABSENTIA and WALK WITH OPEN EYES – a documentary about living with and surviving prostate cancer.

Michelle Farr-Scott

Comedy Producer

Michelle has been working in British comedy for more than two decades and has produced hit shows including Peter Pan Goes Wrong (BBC1), Bluestone 42 (BBC3) and Whites (BBC2). She also launched and produced BBC Comedy Presents, a live comedy show in Edinburgh and around the country. Most recently, she has been Executive Producer on a number of shows including hit Romesh Ranganathan series Avoidance (BBC1), comedy drama Romantic Getaway (Sky) and sitcom The Other Half (UKTV.) Michelle considers her greatest achievement to be organising an entire comedy series set in war-torn Afghanistan to be filmed on a vineyard in South Africa.

Busayo Ige

Actor / Writer

Busayo Ige is a British actor and writer of Nigerian heritage based in Essex. She graduated from Birmingham City University with a degree in English and Drama and trained at the Identity School of Acting.

Her on-screen experience includes appearances in Eastenders, two Screen Nation Award-nominated series, and winning the ‘Favourite Actress’ award for the web series “SUFFERING” in 2020. Additionally, she has featured as the lead in multiple short films.

Busayo wrote and starred in the BFI-backed short film “Essex Girls,” which received critical acclaim at the BFI London Film Festival in 2023 and is being featured at the Sundance Film Festival. The film was also longlisted for a BAFTA short film award in 2024.

Mike Cater

Casting Associate

Born and raised in Essex, Mike began working as a casting associate to Luci Lenox in 2017, co-ordinating the TV & film department at Frank Stein Studio. Together they have worked on numerous projects, most recently films and series for HBO, Netflix, Amazon & Showtime. He studied English & Spanish at Royal Holloway, University of London. On graduating, he worked consistently in talent management and worked at a top London agency for 4 years before making the move to Barcelona.

Mike’s wealth of experience in management, casting and English language teaching has given him a wider perspective of an actor’s potential and a strong ability to assess what an actor should improve upon to succeed.

Joel Wilson

Joel Wilson is a producer, writer and director. In 2006 he co-founded Eleven Film, helping build it into one of the UK’s leading drama companies and producing acclaimed BAFTA and Emmy-winning series including Cast Offs, Glue, The Enfield Haunting, Sex Education, and Lord of the Flies.
Over nearly two decades at Eleven, Wilson developed a reputation for ambitious, emotionally driven storytelling across a wide range of genres, from comedy and horror to literary adaptation and social drama. His work is known for combining cinematic scale with intimate performances and distinctive directorial voices, often championing bold new talent both on and off screen. From the raw emotional complexity of Cast Offs to the rural noir of Glue and the global success of Sex Education, his work has consistently balanced popular appeal with authored, character-driven storytelling, most recently culminating in Lord of the Flies.

Hayden Mclean

Hayden Mclean is a British-Jamaican actor, writer and filmmaker, and the founder of Soul Rebel Productions. His debut short The Last Dance premiered in 2025 and went on to screen at over forty festivals worldwide, winning multiple awards and qualifying for both BAFTA and BIFA. He was subsequently selected for the 2026 Momentum cohort by We Are Parable in partnership with Channel 4 and Sony Pictures Television. His second film FarEye builds on this momentum, further establishing his voice as a rising filmmaker with a distinctive, intimate visual style. Hayden is passionate about bringing soulful, redemptive and impactful Black stories to the forefront and sharing them boldly with the world.

Kate McCoid

Writer & Director

Kate McCoid is a working-class Writer/Director based in Essex. Her award-winning short It’s Not Custard premiered at SXSW and has since gone on to find a home at Channel 4’s Random Acts and with horror giant Alter. Kate has written and directed shorts that have screened globally, won awards at horror genre festivals and earned nominations at various BIFA and BAFTA qualifying festivals, most notably Underwire Film Festival’s Under 25 Award and Norwich Film Festival’s Best East Anglian Award. She is currently receiving a channel 4 mentorship partnership in 2024 with her script reaching top 25 out of over 2600 submissions. Her most recent short Shelley is in script development with BFI South East Script Lab.
Alongside her writing and directing, Kate has also established herself in VFX Editorial in the last decade working on titles such as; Andor, The Little Mermaid, The French Dispatch & Detective Pikachu.

Ed Ismail

Writer & Actor

Ed has been a professional actor/writer for 20 years appearing on stage & screen. He is a Mercury Theatre writer and hosts a podcast for actors called Don’t Think, Act!
His short film It’s Over? was nominated for the Havering Award at the Romford Film Festival in 2019 and he’s currently working on his 2nd feature film script.
Ed is obsessed with cinema, tries to watch a film a day, and prefers Grease 2 to Grease.

Andrew Gooch

Creative Director / Animator

Andrew Gooch is creative director and founder of Ultra Studio. He is a motion graphic designer working within the film, TV and advertising industry for over 15 Years. Andrew graduated from Ravensbourne University in 2009 with his degree in motion graphics design. Starting his career as a freelance designer straight out of University, Andrew has worked with many different design and TV studios to hone his creative skills. During this time he developed his skills within Cinema 4D, and pushed his capabilities with every project. In 2012 he was commissioned to work on the London Olympics, creating the motion graphics for the opening ceremony. This defining project lead Andrew to start his own limited company, later evolving into Ultra Studio. 

Alison Cahn

Journalist, Artist and Filmmaker

Alison spent 25 years working in TV current affairs and documentary. Her most famous documentaries include BAFTA-winner Death on the Rock about the shooting of three Irish republicans, which the government tried to ban, and When Michael Portillo became a Single Mum, where the then politician took over the role of a Merseyside single mum for a week.

More recently, Alison started Forgebank Films, specialising in short online documentaries on environmental, educational and community issues, and set up a thriving low carbon work and event space. Now living in an intentional community in the North-West of England, Alison has just completed a Foundation Diploma in Art & Design.

Alfie Wilson

Acting / Film Student

Alfie is an actor in training with a strong passion for both film and theatre. As a student, he has been actively involved in writing, directing, acting, and producing various pieces of theatre, allowing him to gain a well-rounded understanding of the creative process. Alongside this, Alfie is progressing through the LAMDA grading system, further developing his skills and technique. Alfie is grateful for the opportunity to be part of the Essex International Film Festival and looks forward to connecting with other creatives and participating in the festival’s community.

Christopher Roberts

Christopher Roberts is an up-and-coming writer and self-proclaimed film trivia expert, born and raised in Southend on Sea. Since Graduating with a BA in Television Production and Screen Media at the University of Essex, he has continued his passion for TV and film by working on several projects as a Production Assistant and Boom Mic Operator across Essex. Chris is now involved with Movie Picture Box as a Co-Writer for their upcoming horror film Black Barrels and is in the early stages of developing his first TV pilot, Living with Death. When he has the time in his busy schedule, he is also a blog writer for the Essex Film Collective posts Their Favourite Film.

James Weisz

WRITER & DIRECTOR

James is an award-winning freelance writer and director with a background in theatre and live performance. His experimental Dance film, Parallax Point premiered at Leeds International Film Festival going on to being presented in screen dance festivals in Pensilvania, Malta and Germany.
His LGBTQI+ work has been screened at Norwich Queer International Film Festival, Sunrise Festival, Widescreen Film & TV Awards, and publicly across Europe.

James lives in Essex and produces film with Troika Film Collective.

He has a particularly interest in queer narratives, and experimental work that breaks cinematic conventions.