Meet Hope Dickson Leach, whose debut film The Levelling won her a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit award. The UK director is co-founder of Raising Films, an organisation geared toward making the film industry more parent- and carer-friendly. The Levelling had its world premiere at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival, and was critically lauded. It won the BAFTA Scotland Award for Best Screenplay in 2017, which set Hope up to work on several feature film projects which are now in development. Hope struggled to get her first feature going, and she is candid about having to juggle parenthood while working in the film industry. Her experiences lead her to co-found Raising Films, an organisation which offers peer-to-peer support, crowd funds for child care, advises filmmakers and festivals on how to better serve parents and carers and delves deep into research to find new ways of challenging exclusion and discrimination at a systemic level. This year, Cannes Film Festival announced its initiative to support delegates attending with children, via advisement from Raising Films, marking the first time a major film festival anywhere in the world has offered a comprehensive package of family-friendly services to industry attendees. Raising Films also undertook research in the UK to better understand the screen industry for carers, with some insightful results.
The Levelling is available via Amazon. Click here to watch the trailer