I’m a documentary-maker working across film, photography, audio and writing. I’m interested in using documentary storytelling to dig into the complicated layers of people, place, humanity and the world around us. I enjoy playing with all things analogue.

Bio

Lily is a freelance documentary-maker and storyteller based in the North of England. She collaborates with creatives, communities, organisations and brands to help them tell their stories through film, photography, audio, writing and participatory creative projects. She’s a lover of all things analogue, often experimenting with 16mm, 35mm or old family VHS tape.

Lily kicked off her career by training and working as a youth worker and documentary maker for charities and participatory arts organisations. It was working on the ground in communities across the UK that sparked a connection between her drive to address social issues and her ability to tell stories.

Lily went on to spend the formative years of her career working as a journalist and producer for the BBC, where she developed, shot and edited video and radio documentaries about current affairs issues affecting young people globally. It’s here she honed her ability to tell stories grounded in the world around us.

In 2020, Lily was awarded the first ever Fulbright-BAFTA scholarship and moved to the US, where she completed an MFA in Documentary Media at Northwestern University. She was awarded a second BAFTA Pigott scholarship and a Northwestern Research Grant in 2021, and a short 16mm documentary she directed and produced whilst living in Chicago was screened at Aesthetica Short Film Festival and HOME Manchester in 2022.

Lily returned to her hometown of Manchester, where spent a couple of years exploring the world of branded content, music videos and more; broadening her experience and understanding of telling stories in different contexts. She connected brands to online communities, documented lived experiences of dementia and engaged grass-roots groups around Stockport in music videos for the Blossoms.

She has had original ideas commissioned by the BBC, Channel 4 and British culture magazine Dazed, and her films screened at BAFTA London, The Institute of Contemporary Arts London, HOME Manchester and the Gene Siskel Center in Chicago.