2026

Asif Kapadia is an Academy Award, BAFTA, Grammy, and European Film Award-winning director, writer, and producer, renowned for pushing the boundaries of cinematic storytelling. Widely regarded as one of the most influential filmmakers of his generation, Kapadia is best known for his groundbreaking trilogy — Senna, Amy, and Diego Maradona — which redefined the documentary genre by crafting emotionally powerful, archive-only narratives that play with the urgency and drama of fiction.

Asif has just released his latest work, Kenny Dalglish in cinemas, an inspiring and emotional documentary capturing the mercurial sports figure.
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Asif is also an Ambassador of the Arts Foundation, having been awarded the Fellowship for Film Directing in 2001.⁠
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Danny Leigh is the film critic of the Financial Times. As a journalist, he has written for the FT since 2012, and before that, wrote for many years for The Guardian. He has also worked as a documentary-maker and broadcaster, including co-hosting BBC One's long-running Film show. He is currently finishing his third novel for publisher Faber.

Lindsay is Editorial Director of Film and TV, shaping strategy and output across the Guardian’s film and TV work. Alongside this global focus, she commissions and curates Documentaries for the Guardian’s digital platforms, including the Oscar-winning Colette and BAFTA-winning The Black Cop. With this multi-platform outlook, Lindsay is committed to finding the most powerful ways to bring stories rooted in the Guardian’s distinctive editorial ethos and purpose to the screen.

Before this, Lindsay worked as a filmmaker and journalist and her work has been recognised with numerous awards and shown at The White House as well as top-tier film festivals around the world including Sundance, Tribeca and Sheffield DocFest. She enjoys regular opportunities to judge industry awards, speak at international conferences, teach at universities, and is a proud member of BAFTA.

Raymond Antrobus is the author of 'The Perseverance', 'All The Names Given', 'Signs, Music' and 'The Quiet Ear: An Investigation of Missing Sound'.

Imtiaz Dharker is a poet, artist and video film-maker, awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2014, Chancellor of Newcastle University since 2020. Her seven collections, all published by Bloodaxe Books, include Over the Moon and the latest, Shadow Reader. Her poems have featured on BBC radio, television, the London Underground, Glasgow billboards and Mumbai buses. She has had eleven solo exhibitions of drawings and scripts and directs video films, mostly for non- government organisations working in the area of shelter, education and health for women and children in India.

Ted Hodgkinson is Head of Literature and Spoken Word at the Southbank Centre, Europe’s largest arts centre. He was formerly online editor at Granta magazine and literature programmer and communications manager at the British Council. He has judged numerous literary awards, including the Orwell Prize for Political Writing and RSL Encore Award. In 2020 he chaired the judging panel of the International Booker Prize. He is a trustee of English PEN and New Writing North.

Suzy Klein is responsible for commissioning all arts and classical music content for BBC television channels and iPlayer.

She oversees a wide range of programmes, from returning favourites such as Extraordinary Portraits, Fake or Fortune, Hidden Treasure of the National Trust and the BAFTA Award winning series Rob & Rylan’s Grand Tour to premium series and boxsets including Rise of a Genius and Civilisations.

Classical music makes up a large proportion of Suzy’s brief, including commissioning The Proms for TV and events including Cardiff Singer of the World and BBC Young Musician. Working with the BBC’s performing groups, her team have created a new series on BBC Four - Inside Classical - bringing the orchestras to TV viewers throughout the year. Recent classical music and performance programmes include The Read, Dance Passion and Big Night of Musicals by the National Lottery.

Before joining BBC commissioning, Suzy was a presenter on TV and radio, specialising in music and arts, and previously spent more than a decade working in factual TV production.

Tom Service presents the Saturday Morning programme and the New Music Show for BBC Radio 3, where he wrote and presented 250 editions of The Listening Service, and hosted Music Matters from 2003. His writing about music is at theguardian.com, he was Gresham Professor of Music from 2018-19, and Guest Artistic Director of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in 2005. He has made films for the BBC about composers from Mozart to Saariaho, and has been part of the radio and TV coverage of the BBC Proms for more than twenty years. His books include Music as Alchemy: Journeys with Great Conductors and their Orchestras, and Full of Noises, interviews with the composer Thomas Adès.

Rakhi Singh is a violinist, creative director and composer based in Manchester.

As a solo artist she released her 2023 debut solo album ‘Purnima’ on Bang on a Can’s Cantaloupe Music label but has also released a number of records on Bedroom Community, two albums as curator/director of Manchester Collective and her debut composition/production EP ‘Quarry’.

She has performed in many major venues and festivals around Europe, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg; Concertgebouw Amsterdam; National Concert Hall Dublin; Funkhaus Berlin; Kings Place London; Cheltenham Festival; Supersonic; Bach Thuringen; Ludwigsburg Festival, Kilkenny Festival and Walden Festival. Her artistic life is split into many different roles - performing, recording, collaboration, mentoring and creatively directing.

As a creative director she made a film for the Royal Opera House starring Blackhaine, and has devised large scale works for Manchester Collective and the Southbank Centre, working with Chris Watson and Carlos Casas on an immersive experience of Michael Gordon’s Weather. Designing a light installation for a tour of Rothko Chapel, the iconic piece by Morton Feldman and most recently creating Refractions - a collaboration with British producer Clark and choreographer Melanie Lane for Multitudes Festival 2025 at The Southbank Centre.

As a collaborative composer she has written a number of works with Vessel/Sebastian Gainsborough, NYX Electronic Drone Choir, Laura Cannell, Simmy Singh and Go-go Penguin. She is often heard on film sound tracks, live on Radio 3 and on the records of Clark, Fever Ray, Able Selaocoe, Olivia Chaney, Vessel and Hania Rani.

In 2016 she co-founded Manchester Collective who perform over 50 concerts a year nationally and internationally and work with a huge variety of artists from many different genres. They are resident at the Southbank Centre London.

She thrives on the sharing of artistic languages and creating safe and explorative spaces for artists. This has led her into education and mentoring. After leading a group for 2 years at the RAM she is currently running Manchester Collective Studio at the RNCM and running a residency for Warp Records, working intensively for a week with 3 producers on the space between electronic and acoustic music, culminating in a performance in Unsound and the Southbank.

Through her curating she continues to endeavour to bring important music to the fore and as a soloist and with the Collective she has premiered over 30 new works over the last 10 years.

Born to an English mother and Indian father in rural Wales, Rakhi’s upbringing was influenced by many different cultures and traditions.

Tosin was born in Florida but moved to London as a child. He is of dual US and UK nationality.

Tosin took up acting at a young age, and regularly attended the Intermission Youth Theatre group which was formative in his desire to become a professional actor.

Tosin’s first professional role was in the BBC series THE CUT, which was one of the first ‘online only’ TV series that the BBC produced. Since then Tosin has gone on to appear in a variety of TV projects including THE SECRETS, a BBC TV series created and directed by Dominic Savage, and was a regular in BBC’S DR WHO.

Tosin has appeared in several feature films including STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS in the role of Lieutenant Bastian, BURNING SANDS, a movie for Netflix directed by Gerard McMurray in which he played the leading role of Frank, UNLOCKED directed by Michael Apted in which he played Amjad and EAR FOR EYE directed by debbie tucker green.

Tosin has worked extensively in theatre. He appeared in THEY DRINK IT IN THE CONGO at The Almedia, STOP at the Trafalgar Studios and EAR FOR EYE at the Royal Court. In 2023 he was the lead in the two-hander romantic work, SHIFTERS, which premiered at The Bush Theatre before transferring to London’s West End in 2024. It received widespread critical acclaim.

In 2022 Tosin was seen in AMC’s limited series, 61ST STREET in which he played Moses. He was also seen in the LeBron James produced reboot of the feature, HOUSE PARTY in the lead role. Finally, TILL, directed by Chinonye Chukwu in which he played Medgar Evers. Tosin can currently be seen playing the lead role of Michael, in SUPACELL for Netflix.

Prior to the release of SUPACELL, Tosin played Tyrone Downie in the feature, BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE.

In 2024 Tosin shot 3 BAGS FULL (Kyle Balda) in a leading role alongside Emma Thompson, Hugh Jackman, and Nicholas Galatzine. Tosin is currently shooting the feature, CHILDREN OF BLOOD AND BONE for Paramount in which he plays Tzian.

Tosin lives in London. Outside his acting his interests include basketball and trainers.

Francesca Moody MBE is an Olivier award-winning Theatre Producer. She is best known as the original producer of the multi-award winning, ‘Fleabag’ by Phoebe Waller-Bridge and ‘Baby Reindeer’ by Richard Gadd.

In 2020, with Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Francesca led and coordinated the Fleabag for Charity campaign, streaming Fleabag NT Live on Amazon and Soho Theatre on Demand, raising over £1,000,000 for charities supporting those affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. With Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Olivia Colman, Francesca later established the Theatre Community Fund, raising a further £1,000,000 to support theatrical artists and professionals whose livelihoods and creative futures have been threatened in the wake of Covid-19.

Francesca is also the former Producer of British new writing theatre company Paines Plough, where she produced and developed plays by leading UK playwrights including Dennis Kelly, Duncan Macmillan, James Graham and Kae Tempest. She was also the Executive Producer at curious directive.

Francesca has received an Olivier Award, ten Fringe First Awards and three Off West End Awards for her productions. She is interim Co-Chair of the Board of Trustees for Theatre Royal Stratford East, a Trustee of the Royal Theatrical Fund and an Honorary Associate of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. In 2022 she was awarded an MBE for services to Charitable Fundraising for the Arts in the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Honours.

Rufus Norris was Director and CEO of the National Theatre from 2015-2025. Prior to that he was Associate Director at the National and Young Vic Theatres, and has directed theatre and film in London, New York, across the UK and internationally.

While Director of the National Theatre, Rufus oversaw more than 170 productions at the theatre’s South Bank venue, directing 13 himself. During his tenure he drove forward key commitments to staging new work, increasing representation on and off stage, making theatre more sustainable and increasing the National Theatre’s nationwide and global presence.

He has been the recipient of numerous theatre and film awards, two honorary doctorates, and was Knighted for Services to Theatre in 2025. Since leaving the NT he has taken a step back to rejuvenate and start building projects for the future. He is married to Tanya Ronder, and they have two sons.

Simeon Barclay (b.1975, Huddersfield, UK) spent his formative years during the 90s employed as a machine operative whilst being devoted to the transformative potential of clubs, music, fashion and youth culture movements across the UK. Channelling those alternative modes of expression, he would later attend night school before taking up a place at art college, graduating in 2014 with an MFA at Goldsmiths College. Barclay is the recipient of the Roberts Institute of Art, Practising Performance Commission, the inaugural Ares Art Award, and was included in the Heywood Gallery Touring exhibition; British Art Show 9. Selected projects and exhibitions have been presented at the ICA, South London Gallery, Somerset House, Tate Britain, London; Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh; Manchester Art Gallery, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester. Barclay lives and works in West Yorkshire, England.

Eva Langret is Director, EMEA for Frieze, where she leads on two of the world’s most influential art fairs: Frieze London and Frieze Masters. Passionate about championing emerging artistic talent, she is the Vice Chair of the board of the Camden Art Centre, a place for world-class contemporary art exhibitions and education, a trustee of Fluxus Arts Project, a not-for-profit organisation created by the Institut français du Royaume-Uni, and a trustee of Forma, a London-based non-profit organisation supporting emerging and mid-career British and international artists.

Prof. Sook-Kyung Lee is Director of the Whitworth and Professor of Curatorial Practices at The University of Manchester. Lee has worked as curator, writer, and lecturer in the UK and internationally, advocating global art histories and transnational curating. She was Artistic Director of the 14th Gwangju Biennale (2023), titled soft and weak like water, which explored themes of resistance, indigeneity, decoloniality and ecology. She also served as the Commissioner and Curator of the Korea Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015), presenting Kyungwon Moon and Joonho Jeon. She was Curator of the Japan Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale (2024), represented by the artist Yuko Mohri. Lee was previously Senior Curator, International Art at Tate Modern, working in exhibitions and acquisitions, and headed a major multi-year research initiative ‘Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational’, overseeing its strategic vision and associated programming. Exhibitions she curated include Santiago Yahuarcani: The Beginning of Knowledge at the Whitworth (2025-26), Mirroring: Lucio Fontana and Michelangelo Pistoletto at Prada Rongzhai (2025), A Year in Art: Australia 1992 at Tate Modern (2021-23), Nam June Paik at Tate Modern (2019-21), and CAMP: From Gulf to Gulf to Gulf at Tate Modern (2019-20).