A trio of female film-makers including Bafta-nominated director Sasha Joelle Achilli have formed a factual indie designed to empower working mothers and tell female-driven stories.
All three of the creatives behind Miss Guided Films are mothers or expectant mothers and have issued a mission statement to help “normalise” welcoming working environments for mothers in the documentary world.
Achilli’s work includes Mongoose Pictures' Bafta-nominated BBC2 doc Italy’s Frontline: A Doctor’s Diary and one episode of BBC Studios' BBC2 two-parter 54 Days – America and the Pandemic.
Also on board is director Poppy Edwards, whose films include two BBC4 music documentaries: Whizz Kid Films’ Joan Armatrading: Me, Myself and I (as producer/director) and Nitrate Films’ Keith Richards’ Lost Weekend (as executive producer).
Completing the trio is Charly Wai Feldman, a producer/director who previously worked for indie Key Pictures on primarily Asia-focused factual output including HBO Asia’s The Talwars: Behind Closed Doors.
The three film-makers plan to co-produce and co-direct projects as necessary and Miss Guided’s launch slate offers a glimpse of the female-driven stories they want to tell.
For Birdsong in Bandra [working title], Achilli will film over five years with a young girl from the Mumbai slums who has become an Instagram icon.
Achilli and Edwards are co-directing Sexual Honesty: The Story of Shere Hite, a look at the feminist icon who changed attitudes towards sex.
A third doc is in the works, to be filmed in Italy.
Miss Guided will work with Mongoose Pictures – the indie’s chief executive Dan Edge was an executive producer on Italy’s Frontline – and has a production partnership with Football’s Darkest Secret producer Passion Pictures.
It is also in advanced talks about two international indie partnerships: Germany-based, female-led producer DocDays Productions and Asia’s Peddling Pictures.
