Helen Gladders cut her teeth producing what she describes as “a crazy number of shorts” — including Daina O Pusic’s Rhonna & Donna and fellow 2022 Star of Tomorrow Ruth Greenberg’s Run.
For her first feature, Gladders has gone for an ambitious project: she has reteamed with Pusic for mother-daughter fairy tale Tuesday, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Lola Petticrew (a 2021 Star of Tomorrow), with backing from A24, BBC Film, BFI and Cinereach. Ivana MacKinnon and Oliver Roskill also produce.
“It is a huge film, with a big VFX component. I’d never done visual effects before,” admits Gladders. “It’s a very complicated film to make.”
Gladders completed a masters in producing for film and television at the National Film and Television School (NFTS) in 2014 and worked for two years as a production assistant at Julie Baines’ Dan Films, before setting up her own company, Gingerbread Pictures, in 2016, while keeping financially afloat with teaching jobs at the NFTS.
She observes that all titles on her slate “flirt with genre”, with interracial identity another running thread. Gladders was born in a village outside Cambridge to a British father and a mother from Goa, India. “There was a lot of film and TV on in our household,” she recalls. “My mum is a bit of a sci-fi nerd. In those futuristic worlds, my mum said race becomes a different conversation, and there’s something in that she connected to.”
Gladders’ vibrant slate includes two horror features in the works with Firebrand screenwriters Henrietta and Jessica Ashworth (Stars of Tomorrow in 2012); a film about the true story of a British-Indian woman who became pen pals with rapper Tupac Shakur, in development with fellow producer Ellie Gibbons and written by actress Anjli Mohindra; a psychological drama about pioneering British pilot Amy Johnson produced with Moonriver Entertainment and Chris Hees; Chloe Wicks’ feature debut The Raging Quiet; Zoe Alker’s feature debut Pull Up The Roots; and a horror TV series created by Melissa Iqbal (HBO’s The Nevers).
Contact: Helen Gladders
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