#125: Helen Gladders, Producer

Best Girl Grip

This week's guest is producer Helen Gladders.

I became aware of Helen’s work through the 2016 short film RHONNA & DONNA, directed by Daina O. Pusic, and then I kept seeing her name popping up everywhere and knew she was a producer to watch.

More things you might want to know about Helen:

She is a graduate of the National Film and Television School having done their MA in Producing for Film & Television. She set up her own company Gingerbread Pictures in October 2016 and was nominated for the “Best Producer” award at Underwire for her short THE WYRD written and directed by Chloë Wicks, in 2017. She is an alumni of the BFI NETWORK’S Producer weekender, Edinburgh Film Festival talent lab, and NETWORK@LFF. Her recent short films include NIGHT BUS directed by former podcast guests Jessica & Henrietta Ashworth and the Film4 & BFI Network backed RUN written & directed by former podcast guest Ruth Greenberg and starring Niamh Algar.

At the time of recording, she was in post-production on her first feature TUESDAY, written and directed by Daina O. Pusic, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Lola Petticrew and backed by A24, BBC Films, BFI, and Cinereach. And excitingly, the film has since had two festival appearances confirmed. It will premiere at this year’s Telluride festival in the US, followed shortly after by the BFI London Film Festival, where it will screen in the First Feature Competition.

Elsewhere, Helen is busy working on several projects including debut features from filmmakers Jessica & Henrietta Ashworth, Astrid Thorvaldsen, Morayo Akande and Zoe Alker.

We talk about how Helen discovered a knack for producing, her experience studying at NFTS, establishing a vision and a voice for her production company, the short film funding landscape, what it means to package a project, the differences between producing shorts and features, and how Titanic kickstarted both of our fascinations with the film industry…

SHOW NOTES:

• Watch Helen's shorts RHONNA & DONNA, RUN and NIGHT BUS.
• Listen to my episodes of Best Girl Grip with filmmakers Ruth Greenberg and Jessica & Henrietta Ashworth.
• Read Deadline's review for the feature TUESDAY, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
• Buy tickets for TUESDAY at the BFI London Film Festival.
• Find out where you can watch Helen's film recommendation: JUMBO.
• For more conversations with producers, listen to episodes of Best Girl Grip with Jeanie Igoe, Chi Thai, Sarah Brocklehurst, Emily Morgan and Elhum Shakerifar.