Staff

Nicola worked at the BBC for 12 years as a Producer/Director on primetime series and programme strands in BBC Arts, Specialist Factual and Documentaries and as successful Development Producer. Her work has been nominated for a Grierson Documentary Award, a Royal Television Award and the highly acclaimed series ‘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 Ridley Scott Associates and the Garden. She then set up her own media company which made short films, radio documentaries and most recently creating animated documentaries. 

She is also an experienced and qualified documentary lecturer in Higher Education and a Fellow of the Higher Education Authority. She taught documentary making at City University for 7 years and has also been a Visiting Lecturer at the University of London Goldsmiths and Birkbeck.

Writer-director, born in London to Anglo-Polish parents. After studying literature then film at University of Kent at Canterbury, became Visiting Research Scholar in Film at University of California at Berkeley before returning to the UK to work in the independent film sector and higher education. Short films including Alfalfa and Flames of Passion were distributed internationally. Work as a director for British TV received Royal Television Society and D&AD (Gold and Best of Year) awards and a Prix Italia nomination. Feature-films Love and Death on Long Island (John Hurt and Jason Priestley), and Owning Mahowny (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Minnie Driver) both made Best of Year critics’ lists. Awards include prizes from Cannes Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, New York Film Critics Circle, US National Board of Review, and BAFTA. He teaches directing, screenwriting and acting-to-camera at a range of institutions in the UK and beyond, and has contributed to many European initiatives in feature film development. His LFS directing workshop for film students and actors has just celebrated its 300th edition. His name is easier to pronounce than it looks: Kfee-etnee- ov-skee.

Robin joins London Film School as our Secretary. He has been a solicitor for 29 years, spending most of his time in the public sector and also with Eversheds LLP as a Senior Associate. He has held a number of senior roles in the higher education sector, including University Solicitor at Brunel University and University Secretary to both Lincoln and Cork universities. He was also the Secretary and Director at a Fire Authority. He has a background in the charity sector, where he was the Head of Legal at the Woodland Trust and then the Company Secretary at Arthritis Research UK. Robin joins the School from LAMDA, where he was the Secretary. He has also spent time as a retained firefighter and until recently served as a member of the Independent Monitoring Board at HMP Lincoln. He is also working on his first novel and spending time building his niche legal consultancy, which includes advising some up and coming bands. 

Sue has worked in independent film and television production since 1982.  Her career began at the now legendary Goldcrest Films, where she worked for four years on programmes produced for the new Channel 4. After Goldcrest’s collapse Sue spent a short time as a freelance script editor, before joining Granada Films as Head of Development.  Whilst there she worked on a number of feature films including David Hare’s STRAPLESS and Aisling Walsh’s first feature, JOYRIDERS.  Sue left Granada to co-produce the medical thriller, PAPER MASK, co-funded by Film 4 and British Screen, released in over 70 territories and selected as the closing film in Director’s Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival in 1990. 

Sue then spent 5 years working at the European Script Fund, part of the MEDIA (Creative Europe) organisation and returned to production in 1997 with her first television film, VICIOUS CIRCLE, developed and produced for BBC Films and Irish Screen. This was followed by the BAFTA nominated comedy drama DONOVAN QUICK starring Colin Firth. Over the next twelve years she produced more than 50 hours of primetime television drama for BBC1, BBC2 and ITV and received a second BAFTA nomination.

She continues to develop new productions as well as tutoring and lecturing part time at the London Film School, Goldsmiths University, Serial Eyes and Regents University.

Timo Heinänen F.S.C., cinematographer and previously a professor at Aalto University, Finland. Heinänen’s established career as a cinematographer and educator is irreprehensible; he is skilled across features, short films, documentaries, tv and commercials for over 30 years, with deep educational practice alongside serving as deputy board member of the European Federation of Cinematographers (IMAGO) educational committee, Vice President of Finnish Society of Cinematographers (F.S.C.) and speaker at the ASC International Cinematographers Summit. Heinänen is currently in pre-production on ‘Puluboin ja Ponin leffa’ (2018).