“I went from being a hustler, making films any way I could, to winning a Bafta,” filmmaker Yasmin Afifi sums up plainly. She won the Bafta in 2024 for short film Jellyfish And Lobster, about two elderly care-home residents who make a magical discovery, which is being developed into a feature with BBC Film and Carbon Pictures.
“I love using magical realism and dark comedy as a way of exploring taboo subject matters,” says the London-based filmmaker, who was inspired after losing both her father and aunt to cancer. “It allows me to take on a story that I don’t think I otherwise would be able to, in a way that’s accessible to an audience.”
The hustle started when Afifi was 14 and began making “really crappy films” on a DV camera as part of a media course. The previous 13 years of her life had been spent in and out of hospital, having been born with several health issues including Erb’s palsy, a disability affecting her right arm.
“I was just watching a lot of films,” she says of the period. “It was a window into the world and an escape from it at the same time.”
Afifi went on to study film at the University of Westminster before taking a directing MA at the National Film and Television School (NFTS), fully funded by BBC Film. “I come from a working-class family and the industry felt so inaccessible,” says Afifi. “There were so many programmes I didn’t know about, so it was just me raising little pockets of money to make film after film after film.”
The filmmaker has development funding from the BFI for a second feature, which she describes as a “dark reimagining of Peter Pan” set in the world of female genital mutilation; it is being produced by 2022 Screen Star of Tomorrow Helen Gladders and Aleksandra Bilic.
“I also love to direct writing that isn’t mine,” adds Afifi. “I am, at my core, just a director.”
Contact: Allie Highmore, Lark Management
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