Curious Characters
Amy Banks | Producer
Amy is an award winning independent producer and BAFTA Connect Member; with a 1st Class BA (Hons) in Filmmaking from MET Film School, Ealing Studios, London. Her slate of shorts include: Unleaded (2014), Winner of the Audience Award Watersprite, “Best of the Fest” Seattle Film Festival and Staff Pick/Vimeo Short of the Week; Jaime (2016), Winner of the Alternative Spirit Award at Rhode Island and selected at the BFI Flare LGBTQ Film Festival as one of the #fiveFilmsforFreedom before being released via Peccadillo Pictures.
Other short films include, La Boulangerie (2017), Grasslands (2018), OLVE (2020) and Shell of a Man (2021), all of which have screened at BAFTA and Oscar qualifying festivals. In addition, Amy was a recipient of the IdeasTap Fund in (2011) and produced a piece of theatre, “Show me the World” at the Edinburgh Fringe, Underbelly Vaults.
Films currently on the film festival circuit include; Huggo (2023) a collaboration with FlyGirl Films and charity Aching Arms starring Bebe Cave, Jonny Green and BAFTA nominated Siobhan Finneran and Academy Boy (2024) directed by Luke Jin and the first short film under the Curiosity banner.
Amy has provided production and filming services to clients including HR Palaces, W11 Opera, Getty Images, East Creative and Ignite. Alongside East View Film she produced the feature length opera film The Fire of Olympus (2020) currently streaming on MarqueeTV.
Lisa Rustage | Producer
Lisa is an established editor in Film & HETV, who has worked with Netflix, Warner Bro’s, C4, Film4, BBC, 20th Century Fox, Universal and BFI. Credits include Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One , Derry Girls and Oscar winning films, Bohemian Rhapsody and Judy.
She has edited BFI funded shorts, Plaggy Bag (2023) written & directed by Alex Withers, (which she won Best Editing, at Midland Movie Awards 2024), Before I Do (2024), directed by Gitika Buttoo and Tasbeeh (2021), directed by Iqbal Mohammed.
The crossover into producing came when Ciara O’Rourke brought the script Dead Skin (2022) to her, which won Spirit of Independence’s Emerging Spirit Script to Screen competition in 2022, which she produced & edited. It was extremely successful on the festival circle, being selected for FrightFest, Dead Northern, Leeds International Film Festival and Aesthetica Short Film Festival and then picked up by ALTER. She went on to line producer Black Dog (2024) directed by Ed Kirk, this is currently on the festival circuit.