JURY
2025 Jury
Our juries are are always looking for potential. They are looking for films that experiment, push boundaries, tell stories that haven't been heard before and do so in a way that captivates the audience. They are not just looking for highly polished, big budget productions.
Suffolk Shorts celebrates all filmmakers, regardless of their access to resources.
Lee Ingleby
Narrative Short Film
Lee Ingleby is one of England’s best loved actors, known for diverse film roles such as Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Master and Commander, and The Lost King. He has led many high profile and critically acclaimed television series, including Criminal:UK, The A Word, Line of Duty and Innocent. He is well known for playing John Bacchus in Inspector George Gently. Lee is passionate about short films and has appeared in many, including A Running Jump, written and directed by Mike Leigh and Furnace Four by Haydn Butler.
Tope Laguda
Student Short Film
Tope Laguda’s path in the film industry has been anything but conventional. She began her career as a child star in television commercials during the 1980s and later became one of the original cast members of Flatmates, a popular TV sitcom filmed in Lagos. Now based in Suffolk she describes her first love as storytelling. Her debut feature film as writer and director, What No One Knows has been screened at several festivals across the UK, USA, France, Nigeria, South Africa, and Mexico, marking her arrival as a powerful new voice in independent cinema. The Film is currently streaming on Prime Video.
Tracey McLeod
Narrative Short Film
Tracey Macleod has been a journalist, TV presenter, producer, restaurant critic, radio host and film critic. For the last 20 years she has been the director of the talent agency KBJ Management, guiding the careers of some of Britain’s best-known broadcasters. As the Independent’s long-serving restaurant critic, she appeared regularly as a guest judge on MasterChef, but her most recent TV appearance was as part of Durham University’s alumnus team on University Challenge, securing them the title with her winning answer in the final. Tracey grew up in Ipswich, and spends as much time as possible on the Suffolk coast.
Dani Church
East Anglian Short Film
Ferry-woman Dani Church has a strong Suffolk ancestry, dating back to 1600’s Her family began working on the Walberswick/ Southwold ferry in 1881 and she tells their story in her book The Story of The Southwold to Walberswick Ferry. Seafaring stories of Suffolk have been passed down to her through the generations and she continues to gather tales now that she rows locals and visitors across the River Blyth herself. Dani has supported Suffolk Shorts since joining our screening panel in 2020.
Johann Don-Daniel
Unique Perspectives
Johann is a predominantly sound and 4D artist, exploring sonic sculpture, materiality, and the manipulation of sound-distorting technologies through drums, narratives, and performance. Johann collaborates with several galleries, including GroundWorks and The Sainsburys Centre. His current work, which incorporates frequency-based ecological themes, has been awarded a bursary by the Freelands Foundation.
Ryan Gander
Unique Perspectives
Ryan Gander is an artist living and working in Suffolk and London. He has established an international reputation through artworks that materialise in many different forms from sculpture to film, writing, graphic design, installation, performance and more besides. Gander’s work involves a questioning of language and knowledge, a reinvention of the modes of appearance and creation of an artwork.
Katy Black
Student Short Film
BAFTA award winning documentary filmmaker Katy Black has over 20 years experience of the television broadcast industry working and specialises in making observational films that get to the heart of contemporary issues in the UK. In 2011 she founded Obsidian Films a small Suffolk production company to produce specialist in-depth reports for Channel 4 News. Katy is working on new film projects that delve into the emerging techniques of co-creation documentary. She also teaches media at Suffolk New College guiding the next generation of young creatives to find their own voices.
James Christopher
East Anglian Short Film
James Christopher is an associate director of INK, the UK’s largest producer of short plays which hosts an annual festival in Halesworth, Suffolk. In a previous life he was theatre and chief film critic for respectively Time Out and The Times. He has been on an improbable number of judging panels including the Derek Jarman Award, the BAFTA Rising Star Award, the Perrier Award, and the Palm Dog Award in Cannes Award in Cannes. However, he says that Suffolk Shorts is the creme de la creme!
Emily Richardson
Unique Perspectives
Emily Richardson is an artist filmmaker. Her films have been shown in galleries, museums and festivals internationally including Tate Modern and Tate Britain, London, Pompidou Centre, Paris, Barbican Cinema, London; Anthology Film Archives, New York and Venice, Edinburgh, BFI London, Rotterdam and New York Film Festivals. Emily runs a monthly artists’ film night with The Art Station in Saxmundham.
James King
Narrative Short Film
James is a writer, broadcaster and one of the best known film critics in the UK. He is BBC Radio 2’s resident movie reviewer, providing his expertise on the Jo Whiley Show among others. He presented No Time to Die: The Official James Bond Podcast: No Time To Die and is the author of several books including, most recently, Be More Keanu and Fast Times & Excellent Adventures: The Surprising History of the 80s Teen Movie.
Rachel Prendergast
Student Short Film
Having established commercial production company SubMotion, Rachel and writer-director, Richard Prendergast, also produced two critically acclaimed short films that garnered multiple international awards and critical acclaim. Rachel is now channeling her expertise into Liminal Films, a new Film and TV production company with a strong slate of projects already in development. Liminal Films aims to ignite the screen industry in Norfolk and the East of England by delivering commercially viable Film and TV projects.
Aasaf Ainapore
East Anglian Short Film
Aasaf Ainapore studied directing at the London Film School before becoming a commercials director. His first short films have screened at LFF, Edinburgh Film Festival, Clermont-Ferrand, Rhode Island International Film Festival and Ann Arbor Film Festival. Aasaf wrote and directed Peregrine, a BFI-developed and funded coming-of-age short film and he is a BAFTA Connect Director. He works as a directing tutor at the University of Suffolk. He is also a visiting tutor at the London Film School (MA).