Aashna Thakkar

Source: Reclaim The Frame

Aashna Thakkar

UK gender equity in film charity Reclaim The Frame, previously known as Birds’ Eye View, has hired Aashna Thakkar in the newly-created role of head of audience engagement.

Since moving to London, Toronto-native Thakkar has worked with Into Film on its UK-wide festival. She has previously held programming and education posts at Regent Park Film Festival, Toronto’s longest-running free community film festival; Breakthroughs, the Toronto women and non-binary led film festival; and Hot Docs.

Thakkar, a member of the global Programmers Of Colour Collective, has focused her seven-year career on promoting equity in the film industry and platforming stories of marginalised identities.

Reclaim The Frame’s remit involves curating film events and screenings of films to connect with marginalised audiences. Thakkar will lead on audience-facing work including managing relationships with distributors, developing film release campaigns, curating public programmes and events and developing audiences.

The board of directors is welcoming new members in film programmer and producer Rebecca del Tufo; creative producer, executive producer, consultant and diversity advocate Tolu Stedford; and producer (and Screen Star of Tomorrow 2016) Yaw Basoah as trustees.

In April, campaigns lead Jo Taylor Hitchinson, operations manager Cristina Garcia and programme producer Rōgan Graham are set to leave Reclaim The Frame. The audience engagement position amalgamates the campaigns lead and programme producer roles.