Venice 2025 Panel: Bringing it Together

Saturday 30 August | 16:30 - 18:00

Venice Production Bridge | Hotel Excelsior, Spazio Incontri (Panel Area)

Hosted by the BFI at the 2025 Venice Production Bridge - From competitive tax incentives and funding opportunities to world class producers, talent and locations, the UK is an increasingly attractive co-production partner. Join our select panel of UK funders and producers as they go behind the scenes and discuss the opportunities offered by international collaboration and co-producing with the UK.

MODERATOR:

Wendy Mitchell
Journalist and film festival consultant

PANELLISTS:

Mia Bays
Director of National Lottery Filmmaking Fund | BFI

Denitsa Yordanova
Head of UK Global Screen Fund and International Funds | BFI

Naima Abed
Producer and Co-founder | Paradise City

Kamilla Kristiane Hodøl
Producer and Co-founder | Elation Pictures

Mia Bays
Director of National Lottery Filmmaking Fund | BFI

Mia Bays is an Oscar-winning BAFTA-nominated film producer and executive producer, renowned equality agitator and distribution strategist who has worked across many areas of the independent film sector in a 34-year career. She has produced an Oscar winner (Martin McDonagh's debut, Six Shooter, winning Best Live Action Short 2005) and received two BAFTA nominations including for Best Debut for her work on cult music film Scott Walker – 30 Century Man executive produced by David Bowie and shepherded many more to critical success and box office acclaim in her other roles. She became Director of the National Lottery Filmmaking Fund at the British Film Institute in October 2021 and oversees the work of one of the highest profile and largest UK public film funds.

Mia launched a new strategy for the fund in Spring 2023 which contributes £54m of National Lottery funding to support film development and production, across short form and long form, fiction and documentary and immersive works, from 2023-26. The BFI National Lottery Filmmaking Fund under her tenure had its most decorated year ever in 2023 with the most ever nominations and wins for Lottery-funded titles with films such as Blue Jean, Kneecap, How To Have Sex, Scrapper, Rye Lane, Hoard, Bird, Santosh, Layla, In Camera, Sister Midnight and Sky Peals. The fund just received its most BAFTA nominations ever in 2025 scoring 12. The upcoming slate includes Brides by Nadia Fall and The Thing With Feathers by Dylan Southern starring Benedict Cumberbatch which played at Sundance 2025. Three fund titles premiere in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival 2025.

Denitsa Yordanova
Head of UK Global Screen Fund and International Funds | BFI

Denitsa Yordanova is the Head of UK Global Screen Fund and International Funds at the British Film Institute, overseeing the UK Global Screen Fund and BFI’s international funding activities, including support for delegations and UK presence at international events. UK Global Screen Fund was created in 2021 as a £7 million p.a. initiative of the UK government and the British Film Institute, and provides funding across three dedicated funding pathways, supporting International Distribution, International Co-production and International Business Development activities. To date the UK Global Screen Fund has invested c.£22m in UK screen sector companies and projects, with co-productions such as THE SETTLERS, THE END, BRING THEM DOWN, MERKEL and SEPTEMBER SAYS, featured at festivals such as Telluride, Toronto, Sundance and Cannes. Prior to working at the British Film Institute, Denitsa had over a decade of experience in the media and entertainment industry, in leading strategy and corporate development roles, including at independent TV production companies All3Media and Endemol Shine, as well as at Guardian Media Group.

Naima Abed
Producer and Co-founder | Paradise City

Naïma Abed is a producer and, since 2020, a partner at Paradise City, a production company she co-founded with Émilie Georges, where she manages the London office. She started her film career in 2004 at Celluloid Dreams and joined Maximum Films in Toronto in 2007, aiding its transition to eOne. Based in London since 2010, she initially worked as a production executive at Headline Pictures. In 2014, she collaborated with Émilie Georges at Memento International and La Cinéfacture, expanding the English-language film catalogue and evolving the company from a traditional sales agent to an innovative executive producer, advancing development and production activities. She has been Executive Producer on major titles like CALL ME BY YOUR NAME by Luca Guadagnino and TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG by Justin Kurzel, and more recently produced ATROPIA by Hailey Gates (Jury Prize winner Sundance 2025), and Shatara Michelle Ford’s sophomore film DREAMS IN NIGHTMARES (Berlinale Panorama 2025).

Kamilla Kristiane Hodøl
Producer and Co-founder | Elation Pictures

Kamilla Kristiane Hodøl is an award-winning producer whose recent work include Maria Martinez Bayona’s directorial debut THE END OF IT, starring Rebecca Hall, Gael Garcia Bernal, Noomi Rapace and Beanie Feldstein which is currently in post production and Thordur Palsson directorial debut, THE DAMNED, which premiered at TriBeCa Film Festival in 2024 was released theatrically in the US and UK January 2025 before selling out worldwide. Other features include San Sebastian 2022 Competition title, GREAT YARMOUTH directed by Marco Martins and Tupaq Felber’s debut feature TIDES, which premiered at London Film Festival 2017. Her previous work include the short films MANOMAN by Simon Cartwright (BAFTA & BIFA nominee, winner of Special Mention in SXSW, THANKS FOR DANCING by Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken (Winner Aspen Film Festival), WOE IS ME by Simon Cartwright (First Prize at Rhode Island Film Festival) and MR.WHIPPY by Rachna Suri. Together with her producing partner Emilie Jouffroy, Kamilla are supported by the British Film Institute's Vision Awards under their banner Elation Pictures. They are currently preparing to shoot their next feature in the UK and have projects in development with BBC Film, the BFI and Film4, amongst others. In 2024, the duo also opened a daughter company in Norway, Elation Pictures Norway AS.