Staff

Chris Auty

Director and Chief Executive Officer - Management team

Rod Jones

Interim Chief Operating Officer

Anita O'Connor

Financial Controller - Management team

Claudia Lana

Head of HR - Management team

Charis Coke

Course Leader MA Filmmaking - Management team

Charis is a UK-based Sound Designer and Educator. With a filmmaking career spanning over 30 years, she has worked with internationally recognised award-winning filmmakers, animators, artists, and photographers. She has also made significant contributions to film and sound education, having served in positions such as Programme Director, Senior Lecturer, Visiting Lecturer and External Examiner for undergraduate and postgraduate Film Production, Television and Journalism courses including the University for the Creative Arts, Southampton Solent University, Westminster University, University of Portsmouth and Regents University 

Charis has served on various film festival judging panels, including Watersprite and the Women Over Fifty in Film Festival. Additionally, she has been an active member of the Executive Board of NAHEMI and is a member of the Audio Engineering Society Accessibility Sub-Committee. As a Sound Designer, Charis has collaborated with accomplished artists such as Daria Martin, the 2018 Jarman Award winner, and Charlotte Prodger, the 2018 Turner Prize winner. Her ongoing collaboration with artist Michael Clark resulted in a retrospective group exhibition titled Tales from the Colony Room: Art and Bohemia at Dellasposa in 2020, featuring his tribute to Muriel Belcher, With Daughter on her Mind. Charis's 2023 work with Professor Birgitta Hosea on her experimental animated installation piece Walkcycle is being exhibited at the Hunan Museum in China. Her portfolio also includes fiction and documentary films and artist's works, focusing on the representation of spaces on screen and the role of movement in sound. 

Charis's work as a Sound Designer has been showcased internationally, with her films screened at prestigious events such as the London Short Film Festival, Barcelona International Short Film Festival, Edinburgh Film Festival, Locarno Film Festival, Tate Modern, Quadrangle, Cannes Film Festival, and Ann Arbour. She holds an MA in Sound for the Screen from Bournemouth University, a PGCert in Creative Arts Education, is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a Member of the Audio Engineering Society, and of the Institute of Professional Sound. 

Michele Maher

Academic Registrar - Management team

Michele joins the London Film School with over 30 years of higher education registry experience leading and managing both small and large teams to achieve their potential in supporting the student journey including recruitment, enrolment, induction, programme support, student records, assessment, quality assurance and enhancement, timetabling, progression and graduation. 

Michele’s has had substantial experience and her previous post was at the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) as Campus Registrar based at Farnham and this included responsibility for the registry support in the School of Film and Performing Arts. Prior to joining UCA Michele also worked at Manchester Metropolitan University responsible for the professional support services in the Faculty of Science and Engineering and originally started her higher education career supporting medical and nursing students in a School of Nursing.

As well as experience in registry functions Michele has taken the lead on a number of significant University projects including implementation of assessment policies, new timetabling software and has contributed to the development of several successful collaborative University partnerships.

Michele has a Business Studies degree of which she studied part-time whilst working in Higher Education.

Nicola Gibson

Course Leader MA Documentary Filmmaking - Management team

Nicola worked at the BBC as a Documentary Producer/Director on many primetime series and strands in BBC Arts, Specialist Factual and Documentaries and as successful Development Producer. Her work was nominated for a Grierson Documentary Award, a Royal Television Award and ‘My Life As A Child’, won at five International Input Documentary Festivals. 

Her approach in all her work comes from her belief that documentary is ‘life shared on film’ and after leaving the BBC she worked in the independent sector for independents,including Ridley Scott Associates and The Garden.

She is also an experienced and qualified documentary lecturer in Higher Education and a Fellow of the Higher Education Authority. She  worked as a Visiting Lecturer for many years at City University, University of London Goldsmiths and Birkbeck, before joining London Film School.

Sophia Wellington

Course Leader MA Screenwriting, Head of Screenwriting and Staff Governor - Management team

Sophia Wellington began her film career on the floor – literally: placing marks for Richard Gere as a camera assistant.  After years in the camera department, working on a number of Anglo-American features, Sophia moved into the cutting room where she is, to her knowledge, the only (living) assistant editor to get an apology out of Harvey Weinstein.

Sophia moved into script development in 2003 when she joined World Productions to develop a feature slate for their production deal with Sony Columbia.   During this time, she worked with a variety of writers and directors on films including Layer Cake and Becoming Jane

Another move, this time to Singapore where Sophia taught screenwriting for the Graduate Film and Dramatic Writing programmes of NYU Tisch School of the Arts Asia.  Returning to London in 2015, Sophia combines teaching with writing and script development whilst maintaining her links with the South East Asian film industry.  She runs feature workshops for the Cinemalaya Institute in Manila and recent script consultancy credits include Remittance (2016) a low budget feature exploring the life of migrant workers in Singapore and the upcoming Polis Evo 2, (2018) a high octane, Malaysian action movie.

Victoria Thomas

Course Leader MA International Film Business - Management team

Victoria Thomas joined London Film School as the Course Leader of the MA International Film Business Programme in 2019 after a couple of years as an independent producer, specialising in international co-productions and visiting lecturer at London Film School, National Film and Television School, Southbank University, University of Greenwich and London Film Academy. 

In addition to her role at London Film School, Victoria is the founder of Scotland’s first black owned film and TV production company Republic Of Story (formerly Polkadot Factory), through which she has co-produced both shorts, and indie features, across fiction, documentary, and animation. She continues to oversee an active development slate that has received funding from the BBC, Screen Scotland and BFI Network among others, alongside freelancing as a Producer/Director/Screenwriter. 

Films she has produced have screened at Oscar/BAFTA qualifying film festivals and broadcast on TV internationally, receiving awards and nominations from a variety of organisations including BAFTA Scotland. Original projects on her development slate have been selected for major curated markets including IFP Week, Cannes Producers Network, Fin (formerly Strategic) Partners, Apulia Film Forum and Film London’s Production Finance Market.

As a screenwriter, her original screenplays have been shortlisted for the Oscars Nicholls Fellowship, Sundance Screenwriters lab and in 2020, one of her screenplays won the Meryl Streep/Nicole Kidman/Oprah Winfrey backed The Writers Lab NYC. She is an alumnus of Berlinale Talents, Sheffield Doc Fest's Future Producer School, Glasgow Film Festivals Producer Accelerator Lab, Filmonomics, Edinburgh Talent Lab, Emerging Producers, EAVE and the UK’s National Film & Television School.

She serves on several film juries for a variety of awards and festivals including Sunny Side Of The Doc, Durban International Film Festival, the BIFA’s and sits on the advisory board of Film Africa. She regularly moderates panels and discussions at major international film festivals. She is a voting member of BAFTA Scotland and BAFTA UK.

Prior to embarking on a career in the film industry, she trained as a lawyer and worked as a journalist and publisher. She holds undergraduate and post-graduate degrees in International Business, Law and Film Practice.

Amanda Dorey

HR Adviser

Amanda works with the Head of HR, to deliver a comprehensive HR service to the School.  She has substantial HR experience, gained within the private, public and not for profit sectors.

Amit Sen

Film Music Consultant

Amit started composing at the age of 12 and his first composition was performed at the Camden Festival when he was 14. Since then, over a twenty five year career in music, Amit has composed, orchestrated and acted as music director on a broad range of projects which includes, 2 CDs with Carmel (Warner Bros), Diehard director John McTiernan, The 2nd Bakery Attack director Wolf Baschung (featured short film Sundance Festival), Greekfire (series broadcast on C4), Our Orchestra (broadcasts on WMBR Radio Boston USA), Andorra by Max Frisch directed by Michael Attenborough (Falmer Arts Centre).

Amit studied film scoring with Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams and David Raksin in the USA. Amit was the Head of Jazz Composition and Arranging at the Royal Academy of Music and has published articles on film music. 

Annette Streete

Admissions Manager

Graduated from Bilston College in the Midlands with a Diploma in Business Studies. Prior to joining the London Film School Annette was a qualified Dental Nurse.  

She moved to London in March 1987 and subsequently joined The London Film School in June of the same year as Receptionist. Later this role encompassed the Finance Assistant's role. She then spent a year as acting projectionist on 16mm and 35mm to cover maternity leave in 1990.    

In 2002 Annette was promoted to Admissions Manager - her current role.

Barbara Matas Moris

Senior Lecturer

Belinda Parsons

Senior Lecturer - Camera

Belinda Parsons is a freelance Director of Photography, shooting an independent feature films, cinema shorts and working with production companies for all the major broadcasters, filming social documentaries, arts programming, and three feature length dramas for S4C. She was Cinematographer on British low budget award winning feature film THIN ICE and has won the award for Cinematography on PENINSULA October 2019, Southampton Film Festival. The LWT music series LEAVING HOME was awarded a BAFTA, and the short BREATHING was awarded a Chicago Silver Hugo. Belinda was nominated for a WFTV Samuelson Award for Technical Excellence. She has also specialised in shooting films for artists for gallery installation – Mark Wallinger, Idris Khan, Dorothy Cross, Serena Korda, Jayne Parker, Sarah Baker, Richard Wentworth and others.

A graduate of the NFTS, Belinda has been a Visiting Lecturer in Cinematography at the University of Creative Arts, the London Metropolitan University, the University of Hertfordshire, the University of South Wales, the University of Bedfordshire, the University of Westminster and the National Film and Television School.

Bobby Pellegrini

Registry Administrator

Raised in Austin, Texas, and having spent several years in Oklahoma completing a BA in Communication, Bobby has now relocated to London where he recently completed an MA in International Relations. Prior to joining London Film School, Roberto spent most of his career in International Education, working with the Education Abroad department at the University of Oklahoma. During his seven years with OU, one was spent working with students in Rio de Janeiro, at the OU in Rio study centre. His experience has mainly focused on administrative and advising responsibilities within the International Education field. Moving forward, he is excited to work with students at London Film School to aid in the completion of their degrees.

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