BAFTA has announced the 21 “must-watch” creatives working across film, games and television who make up this year’s BAFTA Breakthrough UK cohort, supported by Netflix.
The arts charity’s flagship new talent programme recognises extraordinary screen talent on the cusp of, or in the midst of, a breakthrough moment, offering a unique springboard into the next phase of their careers through year-round support, one-to-one meetings, career guidance, industry networking events and full BAFTA membership. Since launching in 2013, it has counted Florence Pugh, Tom Holland, Josh O’Connor and Letitia Wright among its alumni.
Ahead of the announcement, The Feature spoke to eleven of this year’s participants about why they applied, where they were when they found out, and what comes next.
“I feel like it’s sort of my debutante ball,” says Emmerdale writer Yassmin Abdel-Magied. “Like I was being announced to high society.”
While it may feel like a debut, almost none of them described their breakthrough as an overnight success. Ella Bruccoleri, selected for her first leading role in The Other Bennet Sister, first applied around ten years ago, just as she started working. “I was like, I’ve broken through. I got a job,” she laughs, “not realising that’s not quite how it works.” What followed was “a decade of being like, oh, I haven’t really had anything that would be defined as a breakthrough.”
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It’s a feeling echoed by Tom McKay, recognised for Mysteria Ecclesiae, the final Kingdom Come: Deliverance II expansion, who says the game “kind of mirrors my career… a very slow burn. I wasn’t landing centre stage from day one.” Louis Paxton started writing his debut feature, The Incomer, “well over ten years ago”. Children’s TV producer Tom Cousins is “close to 20 years” into his career, and his CBeebies series Rafi the Wishing Wizard took five years to make.
Not everyone has been waiting that long, though. Juice S2 production designer Philippa Mumford still describes herself as “quite a fledgling designer” who has “only really just stepped up”, which shows the programme meets people at very different stages of their careers.
With the cohort at such different stages, their reasons for applying varied. Casting director Tom Payne, recognised alongside co-casting director Lucy Allen for Sunny Dancer, saw what the programme had done for alumni such as Aisha Bywaters and thought, “this is the way.” Retreat writer-director Ted Evans was put forward by his agent, whilst Abdel-Magied admits that applying was “a bit of a punt” and she never expected to be selected.
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Finding out made for some memorable moments. Payne was getting their nails done in Ibiza when Allen rang with the news, leaving them both “trying not to scream down the phone.” Hair and make-up designer Regina Meessen was walking from the make-up trailer to set when she refreshed her email: “It stopped me in my tracks, literally.”
Many saw the programme as a way to open doors, both for themselves and for others. Chris Lynch, presenter and producer of In the Driving Seat, says young disabled people are too often “told they can’t do their role because of their disability” and end up “funnelled into something they don’t want to end up doing”. Lynch himself loved camera operating, “the thing that I have been missing out on”, so he built CAERUS, which he describes as the world’s first wheelchair-integrated professional camera system. Now he champions what he calls “inclusive technology, inclusive production.”
Evans took a similar approach on Retreat, which is almost entirely in sign language. The production assigned an interpreter to every head of department, because “interpreters aren’t just for deaf people; they’re also for hearing talent who aren’t able to sign”. He also offered one of the most fascinating insights into the process of filmmaking itself. He compares filming sign language to shooting “dance or combat”: with no ADR to fix a line in post-production, “once you film it, that’s all there is.” Every shot “has to connect”, so “you have to really, really think about the edit.”
It’s a reminder that the programme recognises the crafts behind the camera as much as the faces in front of it. Mumford calls the Juice scripts “like Christmas” for a designer, and on a tight budget her team made everything in-house from recycled materials, “flipping sets over and over again.” For Meessen, the year opens doors that hair and make-up designers rarely walk through: “I don’t necessarily get to go to Netflix… and meet people there.” Payne puts the stakes of casting simply: “If you get that wrong, the whole film can just sort of go off.” McKay, meanwhile, believes performance capture combines the best of theatre and TV, insisting that “the skill of acting is the same across all the media.”
Whatever their craft, the cohort kept coming back to people. At a time of complex conversations around AI in the creative industries, it was striking how many of them put the human at the centre of their work. Runako Celina, producer and reporter on Death in Dubai, says the secret to good journalism is “the human.” She grew up with journalists who had “a stiff upper lip and a tie,” but connected instead with people “who appeared deeply human.” Even so, she says, “I’ll never abandon my own ethics of rigorous journalism… but I also won’t abandon the human element.”
Asked how writing for a continuing drama like Emmerdale compares with her novels, Abdel-Magied says that “people are people… the things that people kind of desire and want are pretty universal,” whether they’re in a Yorkshire village or on an oil rig. Cousins takes a similar view. Rafi puts a two-dad family at its heart and is set in Manchester, and he believes representation and great shows “don’t need to be separate”. Meessen found the same on Dreamers, which follows two women in an immigration removal centre. “You’re never a part of that world if you’re not in that world,” she says, and that’s exactly why those stories matter.
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It can often feel as though the loudest opinion online is the definitive one, and that there’s a “correct” way to watch something. At The Feature, we think the experience itself matters more, so we made sure to close many of our interviews by asking how everyone likes to watch film and TV. (For the record, mine is undoubtedly a 4Dx screening).
Bruccoleri’s ideal is an empty cinema with “a little blanket” and “a mug of hot chocolate”, phone away and “just locked in”. She’s even watched one of her own films to an empty screen, though she won’t say which. Abdel-Magied is “a huge binger”, returning again and again to Justified for characters where “you’re a terrible person, and yet I’m here for it. I’m going to sit with you for 120 hours.” Mumford can’t switch off, “always playing a game” of set or location, and spotting cover-ups on light switches in period dramas. Evans doesn’t own a TV at all, only a projector: “big image and as loud as you can be”, while being respectful to the neighbours, “especially if you’re deaf.”
It was refreshing to speak to so many genuine people working to make the industry better, and their advice for anyone following in their footsteps was just as encouraging. “Don’t wait for permission,” says Evans. “Just make films and build from there.” Celina agrees: “Whatever you have, whether it’s a pen and paper, whether it’s an old iPhone 6… get started anywhere.” Meessen puts it simplest of all: “You grow from everything, so just keep going.”
For this year’s cohort, it appears the breakthrough is only the beginning.
Full Interviews to be available on The Feature Youtube Channel or over on our Instagram @thefeaturehq
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The full list of this year’s BAFTA Breakthrough UK cohort is as follows:
*applied as a team
FILM
Hollie Bryan, Producer – The Ceremony
Louis Paxton, Writer/Director – The Incomer
Lucy Allen*, Casting Directors – Sunny Dancer
Imran Perretta, Co-writer/Director – Ish
Regina Meessen, Hair and Make-Up Designer – Dreamers
Ted Evans, Writer/Director – Retreat
Tom Payne*, Casting Directors – Sunny Dancer
DOCUMENTARY / UNSCRIPTED
Chris Lynch, Presenter and Producer – In the Driving Seat
Myrid Carten, Writer/Director – A Want in Her
Runako Celina, Producer and Reporter – Death in Dubai
TV
Ella Bruccoleri, Performer – The Other Bennet Sister
Izuka Hoyle, Performer – Prisoner
Philippa Mumford, Production Designer – Juice (Series 2)
Sophie Stone, Performer – Falling
Tom Cousins, Creator and Executive Producer – Rafi the Wishing Wizard
Yassmin Abdel-Magied, Writer – Emmerdale
GAMES
Eloise Singer, Writer/Director – The Pirate Queen: No Safe Waters
Husban Siddiqi, Game Director and Developer – Rogue Eclipse
Kate Killick, Creative Director – Pieced Together
Niru Fekri-Arnold, Creator/Designer – Cursed Words
Tom McKay, Performer – Mysteria Ecclesiae: Kingdom Come Deliverance DLC
