Rebecca Birch, Henry Coombes, Juan delGado, Esther Johnson, Melanie Manchot, and Alia Syed were selected for the intensive 10-month programme in 2016, and received a package of bespoke training.

During this period, selected artists have benefited from a raft of opportunities, including, one-to one mentoring, classroom sessions and introductions to marketplaces at international film festivals, as well as one-to-one sessions with producers, festival organisers, scriptwriters, casting directors and other industry experts.

Producer Samm Haillay worked closely with the selected artists in his capacity as Production Advisor for the New Approaches programme.

About the Artists

Rebecca Birch

Rebecca Birch (b.1978) lives and works in London and is a lecturer in Fine Art at Lancaster University. She studied at Goldsmiths and the Slade, and was a LUX associate artist 2012-13. Recent exhibitions, performances and screenings include: Lichen Hunting on the West Coast, Fig 2, ICA, London (2015), How the Miner Looks, Blackrock (commissioned Lydney Park Estate and Matt's Gallery) (2015), Creative Lab Residency, CCA Glasgow (2015), Multiplexing, LUX/PeckhamPlex, London (2014); Test Run, Modern Art Oxford (2014). Rebecca Birch also co-directs, with Rob Smith, the artist-led live broadcast platform, Field Broadcast.

Henry Coombes

Henry Coombes' films have been screened at film festivals internationally, his debut feature film 'Seat in Shadow' was premiered at this years Edinburgh International Film Festival, where it was nominated for the 'Michael Powell Award'. Coombes was one of six artists chosen to represent Scotland at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007). He has had solo exhibition career has included 'Solo Presentation', Kunsthal Kade, Amersfort (2009); Hammer Museum , Los Angeles (2008). Coombes's film , 'I am The Architect' was exhibited as part of The 19th Biennale of Sydney 2014, the film was selected for Chanjiang Photography and Video Biennale 2015, where it received Audience Award. In 2014 his Scottish Bafta nominated film 'The Bedfords', was exhibited as part of, 'Generation', 25 years of Contemporary Art in Scotland, Scottish Gallery of Modern Art.

Juan delGado

Graduated in Media Arts at University of Westminster, Juan delGado lives and works in London since 1994. He works across a range of media including installation, moving image and photography and has produced an extensive body of work that explores themes of trauma, landscape, disability, displacement and gender.

delGado has exhibited widely including at ARCO, Madrid; End of the World Biennial, Argentina; Mardin Biennial, Turkey; ARTBO, Colombia; Turner Contemporary, Margate; National Portrait Gallery, Jerwood Space, and Crossroads Art Show, London; Birzeit Ethnographic Museum, Ramallah; Museum of Islamic Art, Doha; Tyneside Gallery, Newcastle; Belfast Exposed, Belfast and Clandestino Festival, Gothenburg.

His work was selected in at London Disability Film Festival, Tampere Film Festival, Philadelphia Worldwide Film Festival, London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, and Vee-TV series Channel 4. He has been supported by many prestigious organisations including the British Council, the Wellcome Trust, Arts Council England, British Academy, Spanish Ministry of Culture and Artschools Palestine. He has received commissions from the British Council; Wellcome Trust and Unlimited, 2014 amongst other international public funding bodies.

Esther Johnson

Esther Johnson (MA Royal College of Art) is an artist and filmmaker working at the intersection of artist moving image and documentary. Her poetic portraits focus on marginal worlds, to reveal resonant stories that may otherwise remain hidden or ignored. Recurring themes include personal histories, heritage, tradition, folklore, regeneration, and exploration of architectural vernaculars and the inhabited environment. Her film works have exhibited in 40 countries and have been shown on BBC and Channel 4. Her audio works have been broadcast on ABC Australia, BBC Radio 4, Resonance FM and RTÉ radio. In 2012 she won the Philip Leverhulme Prize in Performing and Visual Arts for young scholars.

Melanie Manchot

Melanie Manchot is a London based artist and filmmaker. Her projects employ performative and participatory strategies to explore specific sites, public spaces or particular communities in order to locate notions of individual and collective identities. The mutability of subjectivity as well as the agency of the camera in creating a set of relations are key interests within Manchot's on-going enquiry into personhood and its representations.

Manchot's work has been shown nationally and internationally including exhibitions at Hayward Gallery, London; Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne; Bloomberg Space, London; The Whitechapel Gallery, London; MacVal, Musee d'Art Contemporain, Paris; The Photographers Gallery, London; The Brooklyn Museum, New York; The Australian Museum of Photography, Sydney; Museum Folkwang, Essen and as part of Nuit Blanche, Paris.

Manchot received her MA in Fine Art Photography from the Royal College of Art in 1992.

Alia Syed

Alia Syed was born in 1964 in Swansea, Wales and lives between London and Glasgow. She has been making experimental films for over 25 years. Recent works combine her interest in storytelling with a compelling presentation of history as a visual narrative. Her unique approach sutures different subjective positions in relation to culture, diaspora, and locations.

Syed's films have been shown at numerous institutions around the world including BBC Arts Online , Los Angeles County Museum of Art; 5th Moscow Biennale; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museo National Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid. Syed's films have also been the subject of several solo exhibitions at Talwar Gallery in New York and New Delhi.

New Approaches was supported by Creative Skillset’s Film Skills Fund, with BFI’s Film Forever National Lottery funds.