In this episode of Filmmaker of the Week we sit down with Athena Mandis as she talks about getting her passion film projects made, experiences teaching film, and trying to incorporate her own culture heritage in the stories she wants to tell.

About Athena:

Athena is an award-winning filmmaker and a lecturer in Film Practice at Queen Mary, University of London. She began her professional career as a dramaturg for the David Glass Ensemble (2000-05). This year I completed 2 high-end short dramas; LOSING GRACE and DAUGHTER - which are currently on the festival circuit. Losing Grace has won 6 awards to date and has just been selected to the Bafta and Oscar qualifying LA Short Film Festival. In 2018 she co-wrote, produced, and directed SOUTHGATE TO BRIGHTON, a comedy short. Her short script FOX was shortlisted for both BLUECAT and SHORESCRIPT writing competitions, this later developed into Losing Grace. She is currently developing 2 features - POLLY and XENOS. Xenos was first developed through MODERN TALES in 2017. It won best screenplay at Cyprus IFF 2018 and was selected to the Torino Development Lab in 2019. In addition she has two further shorts in the pipeline THE RETURN (Finalist in Enter The Pitch Competition 2021) and THE SEA.

To follow Athena online you can check out her Twitter and Instagram.

For more on all things To Tony Productions click here.

As always thank you for listening!

Cheers!

Daniel Hess