By Laura Cooper, Second Year, English and Film & Oscar Degirolamo, First Year, English and Film
A day at Watershed filled with optimism and inspiration: Bristol’s most iconic independent cinema hosts an array of events for young people looking to get started in the film industry. Epigram is grateful to Watershed for the opportunity to attend this brilliant event.
Laura Cooper: BFI Q&A and Meet the Producers Panel
If you are a student working towards a career in film and television, you are likely familiar with the fear that this industry is an endless uphill battle, where decent opportunities are few and far between. You will know exactly how it feels to constantly be asked about your ‘plan B’ or advised to consider pivoting to something more conventional; interactions that leave you fretting over what your future may hold.
Keenly aware of these anxieties and with a mission to uplift young creatives, Watershed presents ‘Inside Screen’ alongside the BFI (British Film Institute) Film Academy. Its February 2026 iteration was packed with screenings, Q&As, and chances to connect with likeminded people, and I attended hoping to absorb everything I could from the experts around me.
The day began with a screening of two short films that were selected to receive funding from the BFI Network Short Film Fund, a vital financial support operation for emerging UK based filmmakers. The films, Grandboy (2025) and Pen Mari (2025), worked as an excellent pairing to illuminate the vast range of genres and styles that the fund endorses, Grandboy being a heartfelt realist drama spotlighting the struggles of young carers, and Pen Mari being a disturbingly comedic folk horror following one man’s desperate search for a horses’ skull. Pen Mari was the stand out of the pair, director Siôn Marshall-Waters managing to blend absurd Lynchian images with the style of grim comedy familiar to early episodes of Breaking Bad (2008-2013).
After the screening came a Q&A session with both Siôn and the producer for Grandboy, Liping Pan. When asked for advice from one of the audience members, Liping’s statement, ‘don’t be afraid to ask for help’, really stuck with me. She mentioned how much insight she received from consulting the BFI team with her questions and concerns all throughout the process of making Grandboy, an essential aspect to keep in mind to avoid the common habit of attempting to tackle all of your tasks alone and subsequently burning out.
For the second session of the day, we were introduced to a panel of producers: Bex Rose, Martha Redfern and Lily Woodcock, for a Q&A focusing on demystifying the often overlooked role. I was particularly inspired by Lily’s career journey as she spoke about forming a successful production company alongside her university friends. In fact, the whole panel stressed the importance of building their work around friendships; an encouraging sentiment for me with my experience studying film feeling defined by the friendships I have forged with talented creatives.
I also appreciated one audience member’s question about personal wellbeing during production, what with the high work load and frustrating problem solving producing demands. The conclusion drawn by the panel returned to the importance of the strong bonds within your team that will allow you to ‘lean on’ those you trust, and that trust must also extend to yourself; if you believe that you can persevere through a difficult problem, you are already closer to solving it.
Oscar Degirolamo: All Set West and Networking Session
The third event of the day ran from 2:25-3:45 and was a talk by the company All Set West. They are a company who offer entrance training into the film industry across the West of England. The talk kicked off with Jane Coulter and Jenny Duffy (All Set West programme managers) giving us a, slightly limited, overview of what their company does.
Their opening talk felt rather stunted as they showed us information about production roles that could have easily been sourced from online, turning the talk into more of an advert as they moved on from the accessible information into the world of name-dropping productions that have shot in the West. This information is indeed needed, as some people may not know where to look, but I did feel that there should be more direct advice.
All Set West brought three alumni from their programme: Jay Adlam (Art Dept), Daniel Marky (Camera Dept) and Em Robinson (A.D. Dept). It is always inspiring to see people who have found a foothold in such a difficult industry, but does that mean you can always give new inspiring words to the people desiring a foothold…no; although Daniel Marky brought down the walls of logistical fear, set-up by a lot of industry talks.
Daniel said: “It’s okay to feel like you’re not going at the same pace as everyone else.” This really spoke to me as he said something completely new and didn’t repeat what some of the earlier talks discussed about achieving your goals.
The day ended with a Networking session, which consisted of all the attendees being able to mingle with Industry professionals from various sectors such as short film experts, distribution professionals and members of the BFI funding programme. What made it special was the events acknowledgement of the struggles of networking and how daunting it can be. A talk before the session knocked this back and here are some of the examples of advice:
Find your purpose- what do you want from this conversation.
What’s your sentence- a confident summary of your goals for the other person.
Find common ground- get to know them on a human level, not just a stepping stone.
Sanara Mandari Perera
Once the day ended, I didn’t feel at all that it was a waste of time, (despite some of my harsh comments) because you go and you find those flickers of advice, amongst the scare of a mundane lifelong search on LinkedIn, that speak to you and inspire you.
I would like to thank the Watershed for running this event as so many young people were there and engaging with the day, which gives me a lot of hope for an industry that is under threat.
Featured Image: Laura Cooper / Epigram
For more events and opportunities like this, check out Watershed's events programme here.
