About

I am a documentary filmmaker and a PhD researcher at the University of Essex. I studied Film and Creative Writing as an undergraduate and have an MA in Film Studies from the University of Essex. My work has taken me all over the world, and I have filmed or directed documentaries in Nepal, Palestine, Serbia, Romania, France, and the UK.

My most recent film, But They Can’t Break Stones (2015), follows the story of Radha Paudel, an inspiring human rights activist who works to improve women’s lives in rural Nepal. I followed Radha for 5 weeks, traveling from Kathmandu to Jumla, one of the most remote areas of the country, to witness her work trying to change the practice of chhaupadi (a tradition that requires menstruating women to stay outside or in cowsheds, putting their lives at risk). Radha is one of the most important activists fighting this practice, and I was privileged enough to make one of the first films about chhaupadi. But They Can’t Break Stones has been screened internationally at film festivals and within human rights organisations, and has played a role in raising awareness for an issue that went from being virtually unknown before 2015 to now widely recognised and talked about internationally.

I made my first documentary film, Bethnal Green in 2012. The film tells the story of the 1943 London tube disaster, focusing on the stories of two survivors. The film has been screened by a number of festivals, and also by the Bethnal Green memorial trust and is now part of the Bethnal Green Library collection.

My second film, Monashay (2013) is a documentary that focuses on the lives and personal stories of Roma women living in rural Romania. The project applies Feminist Film theory to practice and has an intersectional approach to representation of the lives of the people on screen, being primarily concerned with foregrounding the influence the means of representation can have on the construction of an identity outside of the dominant hegemonic culture.  The film has received public screenings in London at the Human Rights Action Centre, Amnesty International UK, at the University of Essex as part of the Essex Transitional Justice Network Film Programme, as part of the National Association for Travellers‘ Conference in Ilford, in Prague at the Beyond Borders:  Migration and (In)Equality in Central Europe in Comparison Conference as part of the short film programme, and in California at the Indie Fest, at the Essex Feminist Collective’s International Women’s Day in Colchester, at the Ethnografilm Film Festival in Paris, and is part of the 2014 Videotheque at Sheffield Doc/Fest.

I am also very passionate about cinematography, and in addition to shooting my own films, I have been the cinematographer for four short fiction films: Old Gods (2013), Twigs (2014), Speaking in Public (2014), and No Exit! (2014).

I am currently working as DoP on a feature documentary on women making theatre in former conflict zones, and have travelled to Serbia and Palestine for the shoot.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm5231451/