Edinburgh Napier University
James Mavor
James Mavor leads the Kino Eyes European Fiction Masters programme at Edinburgh Napier University. He developed and led the successful MA Screenwriting from 2007-2020 and also now leads the MFA Advanced Film Practice programme which helped nurture the talents of Ben Sharrock and Irune Gurtubai, the team behind the Bafta-winning Limbo (2021). Kino Eyes graduate Bjorn Hanson moved on to the MFA and is now working successfully as a Producer in Scotland.
James combines teaching with his work as a professional screenwriter. Since joining Screen Academy Scotland in 2007, James has been involved in a number of collaborations with Ian Rankin, including Reichenbach Falls (2007) and Doors Open (2012) for ITV produced by and starring Stephen Fry. His credits for television span 30 years across soaps, series and single dramas, including Take the High Road, Doctor Finlay, Monarch of the Glen and Split Second, starring Clive Owen and Helen McCrory. Current work in development includes two TV projects in development with Compact Pictures and Screen Scotland, and a feature film.
Kate Swan
Kate Swan is a visiting tutor at Edinburgh Napier University.
She produced the internationally acclaimed Scottish feature films PLAY ME SOMETHING directed by John Berger and Timothy Neat, starring Tilda Swinton, Margaret Tait’s BLUE BLACK PERMANENT and the documentary feature film KISS THE WATER directed by Eric Steel with animation by Em Cooper.
She has produced popular television dramas for BBC including SPLIT SECOND, written by James Mavor and starring Clive Owen and Helen McCrory and THE BLUE BOY starring Emma Thompson and Adrian Dunbar.
She is a former Director of the Scottish Film Production Fund where she initiated the multi award-winning Tartan Shorts film strand, and a development slate that led to SHALLOW GRAVE (Danny Boyle) CARLA’S SONG (Ken Loach) and SMALL FACES (Gillies Mackinnon) She developed single television drama for BBC Scotland for over a decade working with a wide range of talents, including Ashley Pharoah and Andrew Kötting.
Kate is currently developing feature films by writers Evan Placey and Alexander McCall Smith, with the support of the British Film Institute and Screen Scotland. She is a former member of the BFI Production Board and is a member of ACE, the European producer’s network.
Carolynne Sinclair Kidd
Carolynne Sinclair Kidd heads up new comedy venture CHANNEL X HOPSCOTCH with partners Alan Marke and Jim Reid from Channel X, and has a biography firmly rooted in comedy. She was one of the producers on the darkly comedic Irvine Welsh penned feature for Film4 THE ACID HOUSE, and went on to produce three series of comedy for STV including HIGH TIMES which was nominated for the Golden Rose of Montreux and won a Scottish BAFTA and Celtic Media Award for best scripted. Supporting new and emerging talent via her role as Executive Producer at the Scottish Film Talent Network she guided many short films to international festival success, annually having films play at festivals such as Sundance, Venice and Berlin, and kickstarting the careers of many writers, directors and producers. This culminated in the release of the BBC Films funded feature LIMBO, which was developed by the SFTN, and played to both critical and audience acclaim. Carolynne has produced two one hour comedy horrors for BBC Scotland written and directed by Still Game’s Greg Hemphill, as well as a short comedy starring Frankie Boyle, and most recently produced a series of monologues on the theme of poverty for BBC 4 SKINT written and directed by UK-wide talent with lived experience of the issue. She produced the 2022 Channel 4 comedy Blap UNFAIR.
Louise Milne
Louise Milne is a visual anthropologist, a film-maker and a leading scholar in the history of dreams.
Originally from Lewis, she has been working and teaching in Edinburgh since the mid-1990s, playing an instrumental role in the development of various undergraduate and graduate programmes both at Edinburgh College of Art and at Edinburgh Napier University. Since 2015, she is Associate Professor of Film.
Her main scholarly contribution is Carnivals & Dreams. Pieter Bruegel and the History of the Imagination, a comprehensive study on the 17th century Flemish Renaissance artist, the first edition of which was funded by Leverhulme. A second edition, currently in its final revision stage, has obtained financial support from the Carnegie and Scouloudi trusts.
Alongside her academic work, Louise is an accomplished film-maker. Her first independent film, The Druids: Travels in Deep England, was supported by the BFI and Channel 4. Subsequently, her films have been chosen for screening at national and international festivals, such as the Alchemy Film Festival in Scotland and, most recently, the Main Film Festival, which Louise attended as an invited special guest in 2017.
In the last few years, she has been short-listed for an RAI prize, and appointed to the board of the International Association of Comparative Mythology, as editor of the Journal of Comparative Mythology, chief editor of Cosmos, and President of the Traditional Cosmology Society.
Louise is also a founder member of the Maths Meets Myth research network group. She has represented the University at public events and festivals, and also appeared as a BBC broadcaster.
Morag McKinnon
Morag studied Film and TV at Edinburgh College of Art graduating with a BA 1st class honours, followed by an MSc from Napier University. She directed a number of short films through various schemes including Home for Channel 4 which won the BAFTA for Best Short Film and a number of international awards. She went on to direct television drama including Buried – as one of two directors, which won the BAFTA for Best TV series. Morag went on to direct the feature Donkeys which won a Scottish BAFTA for best film and collaborated on the documentary I Am Breathing with Emma Davie, which won a Scottish BAFTA award. Most recently Morag filmed the award winning play The List starring Maureen Beattie for Stellar Quines theatre company. Morag teaches part time at Edinburgh College of Art and is developing her next feature - an adaptation of the novel Venus as a boy.
Mark Jenkins
Mark is an award winning film editor and a filmmaker in both the arts and commercial sector. He has extensive experience in film and events programming. He also delivers film education and training. His recent work includes many aspects of working on cultural heritage and arts projects through research, development, training, production, exhibitions and events.
He is currently chair and main programmer for West Side Cinema and a trustee of Regional Screen Scotland, a national organisation providing advice and information on setting up local screen facilities and running Scotland’s mobile cinema – Screen Machine.
Mark was born in London, moved to Chester, and steadily made his way north via Edinburgh and Fife, before moving to Orkney with his wife Rebecca Marr.
Minttu Mantynen
Shooting both drama and documentary since 2002.
Broadcast credits include BBC, STV, YLE and PBS. Very happy to travel. UK and EU passports.
Cinematography credits include the award winning shorts Milk (Golden Bear), Cotopaxi (Silver Bear), Stuck (Silver Hugo), How to Save a Fish from Drowning and Ahora, No (Scottish Baftas).
Nigel Smith
Nigel is current on staff at Edinburgh Napier University/Screen Academy Scotland, where he lectures across the MA Screenwriting, MA Screen Project Development, MA Film (Producing), PGCert Screenwriting and BA Television programmes. Since the late 1990s Nigel has worked in both public and private sectors variously as Producer, Series Producer, Executive Producer, Development Executive, Script Editor, Script Reader/Analyst and Screenwriter, allowing him knowledge of a wide variety of screen narrative development practices across a range of film and television genres and perspective on the varied activities of project producers and screenwriters.
He has experience of story and screenplay writing and development practices abroad- in the story department of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/United Artists, and as a freelance script consultant for Senator Film Produktion & Verleih and Majestic Filmverleih in Germany, most recently (2013) working with Oscar-winning writer/director Florian Gallenberger on an English language polish of feature thriller screenplay ‘Colonia Dignidad’ for the US market.