FILM LONDON LODESTARS: Marco Alessi
"Marco is a really exciting emerging voice working across short form fiction and docs. They are developing an exciting body of work and I look forward to seeing how their longer form work in film and TV evolves."
Jessica Loveland (Head of BBC Writers Room)
The Bower (2022), Marco Alessi on set (centre)
Marco Alessi (they/them) is a BAFTA-nominated film director and writer based in London. Their most recent film, Saintmaking, is a short doc commissioned by The Guardian about the canonisation of queer filmmaker Derek Jarman by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group of queer activist nuns. They are hitting the festival circuit with their beautiful BFI NETWORK-funded fiction short, The Bower, which explores the different generational experiences of HIV through two interwoven timelines in 1991 and 2021, pivoting around a dramatic recreation of Jarman's canonisation.
Past films include Pompeii (Film4, 2019: BFI London Film Festival, BIFA longlisted, London Critics’ Circle nominee), toni_with_an_i (BBC/BFI, 2019: 70th Berlinale, BAFTA nominated for Best Short Form Programme) and Four Quartets (2018, BFI London Film Festival, 69th Berlinale - Crystal Bear Jury Special Mention and Teddy Award nominee, distributed by Peccadillo Pictures).
Marco recently directed their first TV pilot, Such Brave Girls, written by Kat Sadler and produced by BBC/Camden Productions (This Country). Named one of Vimeo's Best Creators of the Year for 2021, Marco is also developing a first feature, Campomarino, with the producers of The Bower, alongside a slate of TV projects.
Marco Alessi on the set of toni_with_an_i (2019)