“There’s no better satisfaction than storytelling,” says producer Shona Mackenzie, who has worked across TV and film and is stepping up as lead producer on Limbo director Ben Sharrock’s next film Alone Together. Callum Turner and Adria Arjona will lead the Tunisia-set shoot.
“It’s about a film writer who has split from his wife and child and is trying to figure out his whole identity,” says Mackenzie, who also worked on Limbo as production co-ordinator.
The native Gàidhlig speaker grew up in the Outer Hebridean Isle of Lewis, where her first filmgoing experience was at the visiting mobile cinema Screen Machine. “It was very infrequent, and you’d be buzzing for it,” she recalls. After studying architecture, Mackenzie switched to Gàidhlig and media, which led to a job at MacTV. An encounter with director Don Coutts opened a door to work on children’s drama Katie Morag. “From there, I didn’t look back.”
Recently, she was a co-producer on Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Harvest, and co-producer and line producer on Rodger Griffiths’ thriller Betrayal (aka Kill) and James McAvoy’s directorial debut California Schemin’. She was also line producer on Netflix hit series Dept. Q and upcoming BBC legal drama Counsels.
Now, Glasgow-based Mackenzie has founded Roag Films. “The company was born out of a desire to take it to the next level,” she says. “There’s a sea loch that connects the Lewis peninsula I lived on and there’s lots of folklore around it. I love the idea of the company being a space for telling stories and connecting communities, so that’s why I named it after that place.”
Roag Films’ projects include anti-romcom How To Survive A Complete Obliteration Of Your Heart with writer Sophie Peacock, which was selected for Glasgow Film Festival’s Funny Features Lab. Mackenzie also runs Fail Better Films with director Ciaran Pasi, currently working on short documentary Catch A Fire backed by Doc Society “about the Bradford riots [in 2001], and tying it into what’s going on politically at the moment”.
She adds: “My passion lies in the independent film world because you’re much closer to the creative process. It’s about the connection and the meaning in the story and how that can speak to people.”
Contact: Shona Mackenzie
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