Team
Team
Philip Ilson
Festival Co-Director
Philip Ilson co-founded LSFF in 2004. He was the short film programmer for the BFI London Film Festival between 2006 and 2022, and has worked as a freelance programmer, including at the East End Film Festival (London), Cork Film Festival (Ireland), and the Branchage Festival (Jersey), Latitude music festival, and at Curzon Soho Cinema.
Charlotte Ashcroft
Festival Co-Director
Charlotte has worked for many years in UK film exhibition including at Showroom cinema in Sheffield, Film4 Online and ICA. She worked as Marketing and Programme Coordinator at Film Hub Scotland based at GFT, promoting new releases and BFI-wide seasons to cinemas and film festivals across Scotland. She is an alumnus of the ICO Cultural Cinema Exhibition Course, the Europa Cinemas Innovation Labs and was a member of the Glasgow Short Film Festival preselection team.
Alice Maestrini
Festival Producer
Alice Maestrini is a film festival producer and cinema manager. Before joining LSFF, she worked in production roles at various festivals including London Korean Film Festival and London Indian Film Festival. She was also co-director of community cinema Screen25 and is now a manager at Rich Mix.
Lauren Gee
Outreach and Engagement Officer
Lauren Gee is a film producer and programmer from London, with a focus on film and storytelling that platforms communities and experiences of the Afro-Caribbean diaspora. Lauren has produced films for artists Alberta Whittle, Onyeka Igwe, Keith Piper and Beverley Bennett as well as curating public programmes for South London Gallery, Tate, South London Gallery, Create London and Film London. Lauren also worked on the selection committee for ‘Short Narrative’ for BlackStar Film Festival 2024.
Christina Papasotiriou
Industry Manager
Christina Papasotiriou is a film programmer with a keen interest in community and filmmakers at the beginning of their careers. Having served as the Senior Programmer and Industry Manager at Raindance Festival as well as Genesis Cinema’s Alternative Programming Manager before that, she brought independent film and showcased work from underrepresented filmmakers at cinemas around London. Currently she is leading the programming and production of the Muslim International Film Festival, an organisation aiming to challenge preconceptions around the Muslim faith and is London Short Film Festival's Industry Manager.
Charlie Evans-Flagg
Events and Guest Manager
Charlie Evans-Flagg has worked across film exhibition in both London and Glasgow. She has worked various roles at the BFI London Film Festival since 2021, at One World Media, Glasgow Film Theatre, and the Prince Charles Cinema. She has a Masters in Gender, Media and Culture from Goldsmiths University of London and will be presenting at the 2025 BFI Woman With a Movie Camera Summit.
Holly Allan
Marketing Coordinator
Holly Allan is an artist, writer and content manager. She has a background in film archiving, preserving everything from Japanese anime from the 1930’s to ’90’s TV shows for ITV. She has degrees in Sculpture & Environmental Art and Film Studies specialising in transgender representations in mainstream cinema. Before joining LSFF she worked with Samizdat festival showing Eastern European film and Weird Weekend promoting cult cinema. She has written about art and artists moving image for The Skinny, Frieze and STIRworld.
Akinna Aquino
Volunteer Coordinator
Akinna Aquino is a British-Filipino producer working across film and events. She delivered the first virtual editions of both the London Short Film Festival and the London Screenwriters’ Festival in 2020/21. In addition, she’s worked on a number of film/video projects including 3D animations for Coloro x WGSN and a short film looking at the lives of the Filipino immigrant community.
Programme Team
Qila Gill
Head of Programme
Qila Gill, a film programmer and producer, is Head of Programme at London Short Film Festival, on Berlinale Shorts and Generations committees, Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg, and a SXSW documentary features screener. She also guest curated the Southeast Asian Short Film Competition at SGIFF. She is currently producing non-fiction films, her research focuses on fragility, sensitivity, inclusivity, ethnicity, ethical discourse, and embodiment. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA), member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia and Programmers of Colour Collective.
Varun Raman
Head of Programme
Previously LSFF’s UK Lead Programmer, Varun is currently a Programming Associate for Narrative Shorts at SXSW and Assistant Director of Shorts Programming at Fantastic Fest. He’s also a writer and filmmaker – his most recent short, Man or Tree, won an award at Clermont-Ferrand and is a Vimeo Staff Pick.
Akinna Aquino
Selection Committee Member
Akinna Aquino is a British-Filipino producer working across film and events. She delivered the first virtual editions of both the London Short Film Festival and the London Screenwriters’ Festival in 2020/21. In addition, she’s worked on a number of film/video projects including 3D animations for Coloro x WGSN and a short film looking at the lives of the Filipino immigrant community.
Sylvie Dumont
Selection Committee Member
Sylvie Dumont has programmed for LSFF since 2020. As former Assistant Manager at the Rio Cinema, she delivered events for Mubi x Dazed & Confused, Deeper into Movies, and Girls in Film. She recently completed her masters degree in Postcolonial Culture & Global Policy at Goldsmiths with a dissertation focused on film archives, anarchy, and accessibility.
Umloda Ibrahim
Selection Committee Member
Umloda is a Glasgow-based film researcher, studying the history of Sudanese Cinema and investigating how resistance appears in Sudanese films and modes of production. She has interdisciplinary experience working for a range of artistic and cultural organisations, including theatres, media charities, and film festivals. Her interests, other than coffee and finding a good book to disappear into, are in reclaiming narratives that have been overlooked and championing authentic stories about the communities around her.
Martyna Ratnikaite
Selection Committee Member
Martyna is a Lithuanian cultural worker whose practice explores memory politics in the post/Soviet space. She holds a BA degree from the University of the Arts London’s Film and Screen Studies course and has previously pre-selected for IndieCork, in addition to serving as a juror for Venice IFF‘s Giornate section.
Mascuud Dahir
Selection Committee Member
Mascuud is an actor born and raised in East London. Recently, he completed a month-long run of a modern day retelling of Romeo and Juliet at the Chelsea Theatre where he played Friar Laurence. Mascuud has a love for all-sorts of film. He recently, in an attempt to bolster his film knowledge, watched 100 films before the end of the year.
Nicky Ni
Selection Committee Member
A Chinese expat living in Chicago, Nicky Ni writes and curates exhibitions and screenings. She is currently Curatorial Resident at Chicago Artists Coalition, Editor at Sixty Inches From Center, and Programmer for Onion City Experimental Film Festival. She is co-founder of LITHIUM and has curated exhibitions or screenings at Conversations at the Edge, Mana Contemporary, Museum of Contemporary Photography, SITE Galleries, 062.
Gamze Şanlı
Selection Committee Member
Gamze Şanlı is a London-based multidisciplinary artist and performer uplifting untold stories through experimental theatre, independent film and documentary. Her craft weaves socio-politics, ancestral remembrance, nostalgic fantasy, poetic horror, mythology and magic. Firmly rooted and always entangled in arts and politics, she seeks to reflect, re-tell and archive intersectional struggles.
Gabriel Calderwood
Selection Committee Member
Gabriel Calderwood is a writer and director based in London. He’s an avid cinephile with a special interest in Central East European cinema. He is currently working on his first feature film, The Memory of the Seagulls, and novel Days of Simple Pleasures.
Lucy Peters
Selection Committee Member
Lucy Peters is a writer, film programmer and curator from Brighton, researching and exhibiting experimental/female directed cinema. Her work 'Female Rebels of the Avant-Garde' has been presented at BFI Southbank and the University of Sussex, alongside curational programming at Genesis Cinema, and The Rio. She also screens from her collective exhibition initiative @electricbluecinema, a nomadic film series collaborating with independent artists, filmmakers and emerging curators to bring the under-screened to young audiences.