Born in The Lake District, moulded in Liverpool and now residing in Berwickshire – Mal has worked in the wine trade and the NHS before joining the team at BFMAF. Mal is the one member of the team without a creative bone in his body (but he can use a calculator).

Elisa Kay joins BFMAF after spending the last few years as a freelancer working in curatorial and research roles with the UK’s Government Art Collection and Somerset House, London, and as a fundraiser for a number of UK arts organisations. Prior to this she was a Curator at Spike Island in Bristol, where she worked on exhibitions with artists including Andrea Luka Zimmerman, Roman Štětina and Sriwhana Spong, as well as Spike Island’s public and artists’ programmes. Between 2012-2014 was Project Manager for How to work together, a shared project by Chisenhale Gallery, The Showroom and Studio Voltaire, and from 2008-12 she was the first Curator/Director at Flat Time House, the former home and studio of the artist John Latham.

Peter Taylor (Belfast, 1974) is a film curator and lives in Berwick-upon-Tweed. He has been the Director of Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival since January 2015.

Previously based in Rotterdam, Peter was a programmer at International Film Festival Rotterdam and WORM between 2005 – 2016.

Peter has curated film screenings and spoken on panels at organisations including Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art, Berlin; Artists Moving Image Northern Ireland, Belfast; Collective Gallery, Edinburgh; Institute of Contemporary Arts London; Glasgow Short Film Festival; International Short Film Festival Oberhausen; Irish Film Institute, Dublin; London Film Festival, LUX, London; Nordland Kunst -of Filmfagskole; Underdox, Munich and Pera Museum, Istanbul.

Most recently he’s been a jury panelist for Costa Rica Festival Internacional de Cine, Diagonale Festival des Österreichischen Films, Film London Jarman Awards, Jerwood/FVU Awards, and the Portuguese Film Fund, Lisbon.

Peter is on the advisory board for the University of St. Andrews Centre for Screen Cultures and currently a mentor for Cinema in Transition, 3-ACT Myanmar.

Hamish joined the Festival back in 2018 and has worked on planning and delivery, working across programming, marketing, film transport, and guest services in his previous role as Programme Coordinator before his appointment as Festival Manager earlier this year.

Prior to Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival, Hamish worked at the 2017 Venice Biennale in both the German and British Pavilions and before this at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh.

Reba joined Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival part-time in 2023.

She has previously worked in comms and curatorial capacities at Watershed, BFI FAN, Rhubaba Gallery, HOME, Dogwoof, ArtReach, Fringe of Colour, Sheffield Doc/Fest and Cinema Rediscovered.

She has written and spoken casually/critically about cinema for Gal-dem, the Independent Cinema Office, 34minus1, Cinema Rediscovered, BFI National Archive, and Club Des Femmes.

Chloë is an artist and facilitator based in Berwick-upon-Tweed. As well as making her own performance works, Chloë works on a variety of community projects across artistic disciplines. These projects have included: dancing in care homes, running Kaleidoscope; BFMAF’s pop-up space for children and their families, working on a music project with teenagers, teaching workshops in schools and even getting her hair cut by children.

Dan Guthrie is an artist-filmmaker, film programmer and writer whose practice often investigates and interrogates historical and contemporary Black presences and mis-presences with an interest in examining how they manifest themselves in rural areas. Recent presentations of his work include Whitstable Biennale, Berlinale Forum Expanded and the Independent Cinema Office and LUX’s Right of Way screening tour. He was an awardee of the 2022 Michael O’Pray Prize for new writing on the moving image and is currently a member of Stroud District Council’s Community Representation Taskforce.

Alice Miller is a PhD researcher and film programmer based in Leeds. She is currently writing her thesis on the history of local independent film exhibition, in the Centre for World Cinemas and Digital Cultures at the University of Leeds. In 2018, she joined Leeds International Film Festival as a programmer and for the 2019 edition of the festival, she programmed Mother Cutter: Women Who Shaped Film, a retrospective season celebrating the work of women editors. She organises pop-up film screenings in various spaces across Leeds and is a local organiser for the DIY celebration of cinema that is Scalarama.

Myriam Mouflih is a film programmer and sometimes writer from Glasgow, UK. Her research has focused predominantly on Artists Moving Image from the African continent and the diaspora. Since 2017, Myriam has programmed for Africa in Motion Film Festival and served on the committee of Transmission Gallery from 2018-2020. She is also a member of the LUX Scotland Advisory group and was on the jury for the Margaret Tait Award 2020/21.

Herb Shellenberger has programmed for Berwick since 2016, including the curated series “Fantastika”, as well as retrospectives or focus programmes on Anti-Archive, Payal Kapadia, Ali Khamraev and Tiffany Sia. He’s organized exhibitions, film series and screenings, performances, conversations, educational programs, radio broadcasts and late night parties at a variety of festivals, museums and art spaces internationally, and works as part of the team who produce The Temenos screenings in Arkadia, Greece. He’s also a DJ, musician and head of the independent record label Love’s Devotee, launching in spring 2023.

Ilinca Vanau is a curator, researcher and artist living in Edinburgh. She has worked with programming teams at Cork International Film Festival and Edinburgh International Film Festival. With BFMAF, she has taken part in the Early Career Critics Workshop and the Berwick Young Programmers scheme. She is currently working on a PhD project in Film Studies at the University of St Andrews, researching sound and posthumanism in recent moving image works made by women filmmakers and artists.

Elizabeth studied literature in London and film in Spain and works in film and book-making in various capacities, with a preference for hybrid roles and analogue filmmaking. She has worked with the BFI, Auguste Orts, the MoMA Department of Film, and several non-fiction and experimental film festivals and independent cinema spaces in Europe. She is presently a submissions viewer for Open City.

Sam is a programmer and filmmaker currently based in London, researching at the intersections of human rights, heritage, and visual cultures. He has worked as Head of Programming for Document Human Rights Film festival and recently completed an MA in Visual Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London. Sam also works as Communications Manager for inclusive music and dance organisation, Paragon Music.

Jess Thornton is an arts administrator with experience working in commercial, visitor experience, operational and events teams in the culture and heritage sector, including The Hepworth Wakefield and Royal Armouries Museum. Now based in Glasgow, she joins the 2023 Festival team after completing a Masters in Film Curation at the University of Glasgow in 2022.

Jen is a freelance Arts Producer & Creative Volunteer Coordinator. She is from Liverpool and currently based in Newcastle. Prior to this role, in 2022 she was Producer of Nightfall by Stellar Projects, Production Manager at Bare Project, Temporary Production Manager and Registrar at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Site Manager of ‘The Finnish Sauna’ with Finnish Institute UK & Ireland, at SICK! Festival in Manchester, Producer at Pinwheel in Newcastle and Front of House Manager at Liverpool Biennial 2021.

She has experience of working for both indoor and outdoor arts organisations and festivals. Jen holds a BA in Fine Art from Lancaster University and is co-founder of the Great British Music Camp, a non for profit arts organisation aimed at inspiring and supporting young people with musical projects.