Four directors have been named as Film London Lodestars for 2021 and tipped as future stars of the industry. You can learn more about them below, including messages from the people who nominated them for the award.

Faye Gilbert(@FayeFilm)

Faye is the writer/director of Zero, a Microwave commissioned feature film (Film London/BFI/BBC Film) which is due to be released this year. Her previous short film The Line premiered at Palm Springs Film Festival, Perdie was BAFTA nominated and Hard Little Man won an Orange/FilmFour prize. Last year she directed 2nd Unit for BBC1's The Salisbury Poisonings and she is now currently lead director for an ITV drama series.

Matt Kay (@mattkaymk)

Matt is an award winning documentary filmmaker based in London. In the past nine years he’s directed and shot a variety of projects for broadcast, cinema and online including Netflix, BBC and over fifty film festivals. His latest short Little Miss Sumo won several awards before launching as a Netflix Original in 2019. Matt is currently expanding Little Miss Sumo into a feature documentary called SUWO which is repped by Endeavor Content and co produced by Bungalow Town. He is also directing a feature for A&E IndieFilms about one of the world’s most successful music groups of all time.

Rosie Westhoff (@rosiewesthoff)

Rosie is a BAFTA nominated filmmaker who’s shorts have screened at festivals around the world. Her BFI NETWORK short Our Sister premiered at LFF in 2019 and won Best British Short at Leeds International Film Festival in 2020. She was recently nominated for a TV BAFTA for the BBC Iplayer Sparks New Voices episode she directed, The Main Part.

Rosie is currently developing a book to TV adaptation of How To Be Autistic with BFI’s Young Audiences Fund and Adapted Pictures, as well as her first feature with the BFI.

Rosie is represented by Jessica Cooper at Curtis Brown.

Naomi Soneye-Thomas (@naomithomas91)

Naomi is writing a shadow script on Casualty as part of the Fresh Perspectives scheme with BBC Studios. She was shortlisted for the Thousand Films scriptwriting competition in 2021. In 2020, she won the HW Fischer Scholarship to take part in Curtis Brown's TV Pilot Writing course, and was shortlisted for the All3Media New Drama Script award. She also took part in the London Voices Scheme run by BBC Writersroom and Talawa Theatre Company in 2018/19. Previous film commissions include Monumental Citizens (with the Royal Court Theatre) and The Integration Game (Roundhouse Film Fund).

You can see the full list of Film London Lodestars for 2021 here.