The Pitch 2025 finalists and judges announced
December 9, 2024

The Pitch Film Fund has announced finalists and judges for the 2025 Fund, with funds presented at BFI Stephen Street on January 19th 2025. This is the 15th year of the annual adaptation challenge looking for fresh takes on thousand-year old stories with cinematic flair.
This year’s finalists’ film ideas cover a wide range of topics and formats from puppetry and Sci-fi, to pain and satire. Entrants this time are British and Finnish hailing from the South Coast (Hastings) to Northern Ireland (Banbridge) with London and Manchester in between.
Adjoa Andoh (Bridgerton, Invictus) joins the judging panel for the first time, bringing her vast expertise from her 40-year career on stage and screen. Returning for her third year as a judge is previous The Pitch Finalist (2016) BAFTA-winner Gbemisola Ikumelo (Black Ops, Brain in Gear). Joining the panel are Alice Cabañas (head of BFI Network) and Elizabeth Oldfield (author/podcaster).
Comedy Finalists:
· Lizzie Hart (recent Theatre Studies graduate from Derby):
o The Kitty – a story of a first crush, a treasure hunt and the perfect jumper for a neurodivergent shop assistant
· James Newman (writer/director from Brentford):
o The Idea – is a comedy about a gossip-loving priest who stumbles upon a powerful Idea. The catch? Everyone he shares it with loses their heads — sometimes even literally.
· Holly Holdsworth (writer/director from Bristol):
o Office Grace – In a call centre in Hell, from where all temptations are whispered to the world, a demon must get to the top of the sales leaderboard before she’s cast into the lowest circle. Bagging Jesus might just be her ticket.
· Guy Ducker (writer/director from London):
o Revelation – a satirical look at the climate crisis – A corporate board looking for an ethical partner for a merger unwittingly takes a meeting with the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.
· Iris Breward (writer/director/Unison trade union organiser, from Cambridge):
o Sauna – There’s hell to pay when a rich woman pressures her personal assistant to fix her home sauna.
Drama Finalists:
· Grace Okyere-Fosu Okyere-Fosu (writer from Manchester):
o The Loneliest Number – follows a mother who builds a garden to cope with her grief, bonding with an anxious new mother in the process.
· David Hubbard (writer from London):
o Endling – In a sealed bunker, a deteriorating robot cares for the last of the world’s crop supplies.
· Joyce Greenaway (actress/writer from Northern Ireland):
o Do I Have To Spell It Out? – When a manager in a multinational falls for a multi million pound deepfake scam but gets to keep his job, will he show the same mercy to his assistant when she makes a tiny mistake?
· Joseph Wallace (animation and puppetry director from Hastings):
o The Exorcism of Gerasene – When a Physician is summoned to a remote coastal village to help a possessed man, he soon realises there is more than one kind of demon lurking and that the village is harbouring a dark secret.
· Alice Johannessen (script editor London/West Midlands):
o Flesh & Blood – a domestic thriller set in an isolated rural village in England. The film tells the story of Julia, a woman in her mid-40s. She’s been tasked with hosting the perfect family event for her parent’s golden wedding anniversary. But on the day of the party, an unsettling revelation about her brother forces Julia to confront a deeply buried family secret.
All finalists have just completed a residential workshop at Low Wood Bay in the Lake District, where they received script coaching and production masterclasses with detailed feedback so that they can fine-tune their pitches ready for the finals at BFI Stephen Street on January 19th 2025. Unlike other film funds, entrants to The Pitch – one of the biggest short film funds in the UK – are guided every step of the way. The winning commissioned filmmakers receive £70,000 funding split between the two comedy and drama shorts.
Development will begin with successfully funded shorts in spring 2025. Pitch production partners Reel Issues Films and leading script consultants will hone the winning concepts, with principal photography starting next summer, ahead of Global Festival submissions. All of the finalists receive a unique combination of support, advice, training, experience and feedback.
Next year’s winners will be recipients of £70,000 funding, plus production support. As well as training and development opportunities for everyone who applies, the Fund offers emerging filmmakers – of any background – the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of everyone from Greta Gerwig to Alfonso Cuaron, in making a film inspired by the world’s most read book – The Bible. Submissions for the 2026 Fund will open online in early summer 2025.