First Features: Launching New Talent, Finding New Voices

Working with new filmmaking talent is both an exciting adventure and a challenge. What kind of financing and production considerations do film funds need to make? How do distributors and sales agents position first films in the market? And how do festivals spotlight a debut, when hardly anyone knows the name of the director? Join us for a captivating conversation around launching new film talent in the international market.

Speakers:

MIA BAYS | Director
BFI National Lottery Filmmaking Fund

MALAIKA BOVA | First Feature Competition Curator
Talinn Black Nights

VIRGINIE DEVESA | Co-ceo, Sales & Acquisitions
Alpha Violet

Moderator:

CARMEN THOMPSON | Film Programmer and Head of Distribution & Special Projects
We Are Parable

About the speakers:

MIA BAYS
Mia Bays is an Oscar-winning, BAFTA nominated film producer, executive producer, strategist and equality agitator with 35 years’ experience across the independent film sector on over 450 feature films. She produced Martin McDonagh’s Oscar-winning Six Shooter and earned two BAFTA nominations including Best Debut for Scott Walker: 30 Century Man, executive produced by David Bowie. Since October 2021, she has led the BFI National Lottery Filmmaking Fund, the UK’s largest public film fund. She launched a new £54m strategy in 2023 covering development and production across shorts, features, documentary and immersive work. Recent releases and prizes have been for Harry Lighton’s multi-BAFTA-nominated Pillion (over £1million at the UK box office following its Cannes Film Festival premiere and prize) and a BAFTA for Best Debut for My Father’s Shadow.

MALAIKA BOVA
Malaika Bova is a curator dedicated to championing emerging filmmakers. Currently the First Feature Competition Curator at Tallinn Black Nights and a programmer for Docs Barcelona, she specializes in elevating debut talent. As Artistic Director of Raindance, Malaika reshaped the festival into a dedicated platform for first-time directors; at Tallinn, she leverages a larger, more structured environment to provide these voices with the infrastructure to launch their careers. Her professional path also includes producing “From Venice to London” with La Biennale di Venezia, curating the Italian Doc Season at Bertha DocHouse, and producing the Austrian Film Festival in London.

VIRGINIE DEVESA
Virginie Devesa studied for two years in the United States at University of Washington and earned a master’s degree in corporate communications from University of Lyon III. After working as a sales manager, she founded Alpha Violet in 2012 together with Keiko Funato. The company focuses on bold, audacious films, particularly those directed by women, and its catalogue includes over 80 award-winning international features and documentaries.

CARMEN THOMPSON
Carmen Thompson is a film programmer, distributor and cultural producer based in Scotland. She works freelance and consultants across programming, audiences, festivals, training and development, funding and distribution, both in the UK and internationally, with a particular focus on cinema from the African continent and the diaspora.Carmen currently works as Head Distribution & Special Projects for multi-award winning film exhibition & distribution company We Are Parable where she leads on nationwide and international projects, including the releases of Banel & Adama (Ramata-Toulaye Sy, 2023) and Dreamers (Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor, 2025) in the UK and Ireland, is an International Features Programmer for Hot Docs Festival and is one third of the newly-formed Jali Collective in Scotland. A 2024 Screen International Future Leader, Carmen is deputy chair of the British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) and is a BAFTA and European Film Academy voter.