The Grierson Trust has announced the 12 young people aged 18-25 who have been selected to join the twelfth edition of the Grierson DocLab new entrant scheme.
The placements are run in partnership with 18 of the UK’s leading production companies. Each Grierson DocLab trainee will receive a work placement within the companies where they will build on their training, develop their skills and gain knowledge and industry contacts to become ‘job ready’ for entry-level roles in documentaries and factual.
This year’s trainees are: Lena Elghamry (London), Tawana Gandiyah (Bristol), Jessica Lees (Prenton), Lucy Lawson (Sawbridgeworth), Sara Michelangeli (Bromsgrove), Bea Montgomery-Christy (Brighton), Esme Ramlal (London), Ren Scott-Bridge (Brighton), Martha Slater (London), Alice Stewart (London), Mia Versluys (Bracknell), and Edie Wood (Worthing).
Production companies supporting Grierson DocLab 2024 programme include new for this year Dorothy Street Pictures, Fulwell 73 Productions, Passion Pictures and KEO Films, alongside previous partners BBC Studios, Blast! Films, Box to Box Films, Dragonfly TV, Lightbox, Minnow Films, Nutopia, Raw TV, Rogan Productions, The Garden, True North, TwentyTwenty, Wall to Wall, Wise Owl Films (part of All3Media), and Wonderhood Studios.
Banijay is also joining the Rank Foundation as a sponsor of the scheme.
Sylvia Bednarz, Managing Director of the Grierson Trust said: “A key part of the Grierson Trust’s remit is to develop and support diverse voices within the documentary industry, and to contribute to a more vibrant, inclusive, and dynamic documentary landscape in the UK. We are grateful to be supported by The Rank Foundation and Banijay, and thrilled to be working in partnership with 18 of the UK’s leading production companies to provide mentoring, training and hands-on work placements to another cohort of young people looking to their start careers.”
Liesel Evans, Creative Director, Raw TV said: “We love having the DocLab trainees at Raw – they are always full of enthusiasm and energy and are a delight to work with. Over the years, we have ended up employing several of the graduates of the scheme and they have always excelled. We’re delighted to be supporting the scheme again this year and long may it continue!”
Alongside the Grierson DocLab: New Entrant programme, the Trust also runs three Grierson DocLab specialist programmes: Editing and Production Management in partnership with Netflix, and Archive Producers in collaboration with Prime Video Pathway.
Amongst the Grierson DocLab Alumni are: Eloise Millard (2018) who worked as an AP on the BBC Two documentary series Inside Our Autistic Minds which won the Best Science Documentary category at the 2023 Grierson Awards, Chandler Pierre (2020) a Researcher on BBC Studios’ Fight the Power: How Hip Hop Changed the World, which was nominated in the Best Music Documentary category at the 2023 Grierson awards, Cherish Oteka (2016) who won the Best Short Film BAFTA in 2022 for their documentary, The Black Cop; Poppy Goodheart’s (2013) Channel 4 First Cut short, The Boy Who Can’t Stop Dancing was shortlisted for a Rose d’Or 2022 in the Best Arts Category; Lauren Dawkins (2022), was credited as a Researcher on Kathy Burke’s most recent Channel 4 doc series, Growing Up; and Ermias Asfaw (2021) who produced the short documentary, The Archive: Queer Nigerian Project, funded by BFI Doc Society.
Jon Creamer
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