Hope Dickson Leach
About Hope Dickson Leach
Hope completed her MFA in filmmaking at Columbia University where she made three short films that played at festivals worldwide. While in New York she was assistant to Todd Solondz on his film Palindromes. Hope’s award-winning thesis film, The Dawn Chorus, was selected for Sundance, Edinburgh, London and many other festivals. Screen International made her a Star of Tomorrow and Filmmaker Magazine named her one of the ’25 New Faces of Independent Film’.
Since her return to the UK, she has made further acclaimed short works for Channel 4, Film London, the UK Film Council, NOWNESS and the National Theatre of Scotland. Her debut feature The Levelling, produced as part the iFeatures scheme (funded by BBC Films, the BFI and Creative England) had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival before screening at festivals all over the world. At the London Film Festival she was awarded the inaugural IWC Filmmaker Bursary Award in Association with the BFI, and was named a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit as well as winning a Scottish BAFTA for Best Screenwriter for The Levelling. In early 2020 she released a new short film, Strong is Better Than Angry, as part of The Uncertain Kingdom project, and in the summer of 2020 Hope created a film for the National Theatre of Scotland for the Edinburgh International Festival. Ghost Light premiered to five star reviews across the board.