Women’s History Month: Hannah Daniel & Georgia Lee

Biographies

Hannah started her career as an actor and has worked for over 15 years in theatre, film and television. Credits include Hinterland, Keeping Faith, and Holby City. In 2016 she spent time  improvising at the UCB Theatre and The Groundlings in Los Angeles, where she began her work as  a writer-performer.  

Georgia started her career as a musician and songwriter and was signed to Island Records with her band JUCE. Since 2017 she has been working full time as a screenwriter and producer. She has  collaborated with screenwriter John-Henry Butterworth and a number of British and US production companies on a range of dramas for TV and film.

Gwefan

When was the first time you realised you wanted to make films?  

We met in university in 2005, studying English Literature. We lived together, studied together and, both avid  film fans and masters at procrastination, watched a lot of movies together. We’d watch the Coen Brothers’  back catalogue repeatedly – lapping up the fluidity of genre in their films – their darkness, their humour, the  breadth of wild and wonderful characters. We’d sit on the sofa dreaming up the films that we, like The Coen  Brothers, would one day write, direct and produce ourselves…  

Finally, in 2017, having started writing together a year previously for television, we decided it was time to write and direct our first short film. DESTINATION was shot in three days around Cardiff, in Hannah’s mum’s car on a  shoestring budget. It follows a day in the life of a young Welsh female Uber driver facing a huge life decision.  

The film went on to win multiple awards internationally.

What was the last project you worked on / made?  

We completed our short film BURIAL in August 2020 (As part of Beacons: Short Films From Wales). A dark comedy set in a very Welsh funeral, about grief, sisterhood and complicated family ties. We shot it in Port Talbot with a wealth of Welsh talent. We had a ball!  

What are you up to now? / What is the next project you’re working on?  

We’re currently working on our first original feature script. Other projects in development include TV comedy NANNIES, a series following a bunch of delinquent childminders chancing their way through the madness of  Cardiff’s “New Parent” scene, and THE INVISIBLE WOMAN a truly unconventional superhero story.

Check out the many other female filmmakers telling unique stories in Wales here

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CY