Winter 2024

Greetings all and a very happy new year! I am once again about to head off to Sundance to start this new year in film. Last year, I left my venue-based role to move into the world of freelance. It’s been a rollercoaster of a year and certainly a learning curve, but here are some of the highlights from the second half of 2023:

• For the third season running, I joined the pre-screening team at Sundance, reviewing submissions to the US and World Cinema Dramatic Competition strands. The full line-up has since been released ahead of their 40th anniversary edition.

• Since August, I’ve joined Nexus Cast and Crew Network as a Producer, assisting the team with fundraising and business planning.

• In the autumn, I worked with the London Indian Film Festival and their satellite branches in Birmingham, Yorkshire and Manchester, managing all print traffic for their 2023 edition.

• Finally, I co-ran, co-programmed and co-produced the 19th edition of Mayhem Film Festival in Nottingham, hosting 16 screenings over four days.

As we enter the new year, I look forward to new collaborations and projects. I am currently open for work. You can contact me by using the form on my About Me section or by emailing me at meligueneau@gmail.com

Spring 2023

Spring is well upon us and it’s been all change over here. I left my role at Warwick Arts Centre in April to embark on a full-time freelance journey and I am currently open for work.

Since leaving my position, I went back to France for a little while to see my family and give myself some well needed rest. I then worked with 606 Distribution on the release of The Old Man Movie - Lactopalypse, an outrageous Estonian animation from filmmakers Mikk Mägi and Oskar Lehemaa. The film is currently on a preview tour with Q&As before hitting cinemas in the UK and Ireland on Friday 2 June. If you want to see something that might have come out of the minds of the Aardman team if they’d taken some acid, this one is for you. Though beware: you’ll never look at milk the same way ever again. Watch the trailer here.

I’m also just back from the Cannes Film Festival where I joined the rest of the Mayhem Film Festival team as we begin to scout for films for our 2023 edition. Mayhem Film Festival will take place at Broadway, Nottingham on 12-15 October this year and we are now also accepting short film submissions via FilmFreeway here.

New year

As we start the new year, I thought I’d clean up the site a little and start afresh. I’ll be using this journal periodically to document things I’m working on over the year. For now, I thought I’d pick a handful of highlights from 2022.

• In January, I assisted the Sundance Industry Office virtually as the festival moved online at short notice due to Omicron. Though it was a shame not to be able to return to Park City in person, it was absolutely the best thing to do and it was great to be able to assist the team from afar.

• In April, I went back home to see my family for the first time since Christmas 2019. Also in April, Mayhem collaborated with The Nottingham Horror Collective for a screening of Karyn Kusama’s Jennifer Body and a selection of short films directed by women that we curated.

• In May, I returned to Cannes for the first time since the start of the pandemic. It felt like a genuine treat and though the festival was much quieter than in pre-Covid times, it had a fantastic line-up including Jerzy Skolimowski’s EO, Quentin Dupieux’s Smoking Causes Coughing, and my favourite film of the year, Charlotte Wells’s Aftersun.

• In October, we held Mayhem Film Festival’s 17th edition though I got struck by Covid two days before and couldn’t attend in person which was devastating. Still, I’m very proud of the programme we put together - but will remain forever sad that I didn’t get to see our screening of Kaneto Shindo’s Kuroneko with live newly-commissioned score by Yumah, which Steven Sheil spent so much time putting together.

• Also in October, I launched Show Me Your Teeth, an exploration of feminism, vampirism and the representation of women in vampiric tales. I curated the season for Warwick Arts Centre as part of the BFI’s In Dreams Are Monsters season. Show Me Your Teeth included seven screenings, a panel discussion with Jennifer Handorf, Sabina Stent and Helen Wheatley, and a zine featuring specially-commissioned artworks and written pieces exploring the themes of the season.

• In November, Mayhem welcomed Kier-La Janisse to Broadway Cinema in Nottingham as part of the House of Psychotic Women 10th anniversary tour organised by Matchbox Cineclub. Also in November, I headed over to Dundee for This Way Up where I sat on a panel about genre cinema with Nia Edwards-Behi from Abertoir and Andrew Partridge from Scotland Loves Anime.

• Finally, in December, I attended the BIFA afterparty as a voter and got in the venue as Aftersun was awarded Best Independent Film which felt like the perfect way to wrap up the year.

I look forward to seeing what 2023 has in store. First and next stop, Sundance - I’m off to pack my suitcase.