Home Fran Lea

Fran Lea

Director

Christina Pickworth

christina@imaginetalent.co.uk

+44 (0)7876 685515
Fran Lea
Multi-award-winning Filmmaker Fran Lea became a UK Screen Star of Tomorrow after co-writing & directing critically acclaimed Feature Film Strawberry Fields with BBC Films, BFI, Spring Pictures, and Film London. Fran Lea taught women directors in Sweden (as well as through Film London, London Film School and University of Hertfordshire) at a time when Anna Serner demanded Europe change its commissioning policies to include 50% women filmmakers. Fran has lead panel & solo talks at Underwire Film Festival, BFI, & Birds Eye View Film Festival, created an Independent Cinema at Treadwell’s Art Mill, Bradford, directed theatre in Paris and worked as an Arts council &WIPN funded Writer-in-Residence at HMP Bedford.

*UK Screen Star of Tomorrow 2011

*11 International Awards

*Director of Network TV Drama, Feature Films, Comedy, Animation & Documentary

"She has pursued her passion to communicate the complexities of human beings through thick and thin. She has an extraordinary, uncompromising voice. If there is such a thing as a film making community, then it should be striving to push talents like Frances to the fore. Passionate about her work she may be, but she also has the easiest laugh of anyone I know and is great, inclusive company. I cannot recommend her highly enough." Simon Beaufoy
DEVELOPMENT
TAGGED
(director)

Not A Number Productions/Lakeshore Entertainment. A fantasy body-swapping movie. A young girl-thief becomes stuck inside the body of a dying female tai chi master. 2018/19.

ASTRONAUT
(director)

Not A Number Productions/Lakeshore Entertainment. A sci-fi puzzle box thriller, where Alien meets Shutter Island. Set in the infinite and unforgiving realm of deep space, two sisters - an astronaut and a mental patient in a clinic - are connected by a psychic bond. But what is imagined and what is real? 2018/19.

MY HAPPY VULVA
(writer/director)

What Larks TV. A radical 6-part comedy drama series set in a basement of a women-only sex shop. 2017/18.

HOO-HA
(writer/director)

Overactive Imagination NZ/Grasp The Nettle Productions UK. New Zealand Film Commission, Toronto Producers' Lab. An anarchic Road movie inspired by Daisies - 1966 Czechoslavakian surrealist comedy-drama film by Věra Chytilová. 2015/16.

FINGER PUPPETS
(writer/director)

M.I.A. Films, Mia Bays. Tommy the Rock Opera meets 1970s The Ice Storm. 2013/15.

BILLY AND GIRL
(writer/director)

M.I.A. Films, Mia Bays. Novel by Deborah Levy. A farcical Coen Brothers style kidnapping heist. 2013/15.

FOUL PLAY/BABY DOLL
(writer/director)

M.I.A. Films, Mia Bays. 2013/15.

FILM
STRAWBERRY FIELDS
(co-writer/director)

BBC Films/BFI/Film London Microwave/Spring Pictures/Soda Pictures. A psychological drama about two sisters, set in the strawberry picking fields of Kent. Multiple Primetime BBC Saturday night screenings, Netflix, Soda Pictures cinema and DVD release 2012. Critically acclaimed, worldwide Festival screenings.
*'Very well directed by Frances Lea... a very handsome film... it is rather impressive.' Mark Kermode
*'An intelligent script, beguiling performances, A Streetcar Named Desire meets My Summer of Love.' Total Film ****
*'Lea has produced a fine piece of cinema, and is a talent the British film industry should cherish.' Hollywood News ****

EVERYONE'S HAPPY
(director)

65 min film written by Simon Beaufoy and produced by Mark Blaney. Footprint Films/Yorkshire Media Production Agency. Two tents, four lost souls, a few wet days in an out of season, seaside town.
*'Marvelously played by a no-name cast, it puts many flashier Britpics to shame.' Derek Elley, Variety

TELEVISION
FUGEE GIRL
(director)

Half hour drama, Channel 4 Outcasts series.

SAMSON SUPERSLUG
(director)

A 13 part Comedy Drama series for ITV network, written by Jeff Povey, with producers Jill Green and Linda James.

RELEASE ME
(director)

BBC2 Disability 7 International awards.
*'For me it is a surprising and brave film, and an inspiration to watch.' Jane Campion

DOCUMENTARY
FRIERN HOSPITAL CLOSURE
(director)

50 mins documentary financed by N.E. Thames Health Authority, produced by Never Never Films.

FACE-ON
(director)

Mosaic Films/Screen East. Created a pilot documentary, with inmates telling and performing their stories from HMP Bedford.

ANIMATION
OH JULIE!
(director/writer)

9 min animation for Channel 4. 4 international awards with US Manga cinema and DVD release as part of General Chaos Uncensored animation.

THEATRE
THE QUEENS
(director)

Glasshouse Theatre Company, Paris.
*'Spirited and utterly absorbing.. nuanced performances capturing the blend of power and paranoia which defines their characters... The result is memorable and attention-grabbing theatre.' Time Out (Paris)

ONLINE
GET A LIFE HARRY
(director)

17 part interactive internet comedy drama series written by Judith Johnson for IMP Corporation. Creative Director Simon Beaufoy. One of the world's first interactive drama series.

OTHER
BINGER FILM LAB
ANIMATION COURSE 1 YEAR, CITY LIT.
TORINO SCREENWRITERS LAB GOTHENBURG FILM FESTIVAL
EFA DIRECTORS MASTERCLASS THE SOUL OF THE ACTOR