BFI Network@LFF unveils 2025 participants

EXCLUSIVE: Screen Stars of Tomorrow 2025 Anna Snowball and Matty Crawford, plus associate producer of Julia Jackman’s 100 Nights Of Hero Chloe Cuplin, are among the 15 writers, directors and producers taking part in the 12th BFI Network@LFF professional development programme.

Snowball is a documentary filmmaker whose credits include Netflix Documentary Talent Fund-winning short Iranian Yellow Pages, which premiered at BFI London Film Festival in 2024. She is currently working on her first feature about motherhood and neurodiversity, Inside Is Chaos. Crawford is a UK-Filipino writer-director, whose Toronto and SXSW premiere short Stomach Bug was Bafta-nominated. He is developing his debut feature with BBC Film and Galazia Productions.

Cuplin’s credits include associate producing Jackman and Erebus Pictures’ Venice Critics’ Week world premiere and BFI London Film Festival closing night film 100 Nights Of Hero, as well as a co-producer on Louise Stern’s BFI and BBC Film-backed debut, A Hand Rises. She also produced Jamie Di Spirito’s short Homework with Katie Sinclair, as part of BFI and Film4’s high budget shorts programme, Future Takes.

Also selected is Cheri Darbon, whose production company June & Stella Productions focuses on subcultures and redefining identities. As well as associate producing Venice Critics’ Week 2024 winner Hoard, her credits include Bifa-winning and Bafta-nominated Festival Of Slaps and BMW Filmmaking Challenge winner We Collide. Darbon is currently developing Abdou Cisse’s debut feature, Voice Of Reason, with BBC Film.



Writer-director Courteney Tan worked as a script editor on Lena Dunham’s Too Much, and is currently developing a book adaptation with Pukka Films and a TV show with Three Tables Productions.

The cohort participates in an intensive programme of masterclasses, screenings and events with industry professionals and will regroup in spring 2026 for further tailored sessions. For the second year, the lab features a growing documentary strand supported by the BFI Doc Society Fund. 

Alumni from the programme include Harry Lighton, whose debut Pillion won best screenplay when it premiered in Un Certain Regard in Cannes earlier this year, Akinola Davies Jr, writer-director of My Father’s Shadow, which also world premiered in Un Certain Regard where he received the Caméra d’Or special mention, and 100 Nights of Hero producer Helen Simmons.

BFI Network@LFF 2025

• Anna Snowball – producer (south east)
• Cheri Darbon – producer (London)
• Chloe Culpin – writer-director-producer (midlands) 

• Courteney Tan – writer-director (south east)
• Elham Ehsas – writer-director (London)

• Hannah Currie – director (Scotland)
• 
Hannah Tookey – producer (north)
• 
Hansel Rodrigues – writer-director (south east)
• Jesse Lewis-Reece – writer-director (south east)

• Jessica Bishopp – writer-director (London)
• Josephine Lohoar Self – writer-director (south east)
• Matty Crawford – writer-director (London)

• Ray Wilson – producer (Wales)

• Shannon Welby – writer (Northern Ireland)

• Sophie Chater – producer (Scotland)