Industry Roundtables
Demystifying Casting with Backstage
In this roundtable, casting director Hannah Williams invites two filmmakers from this years competition to chat about the casting process for their respective films. Ruth Greenberg, director of Run and Ruicheng Liang, director of Man Up in Lockdown explore the process of casting for a short film and the common pitfalls that short filmmakers encounter.
Hosted by Hannah Williams - Backstage UK
Special Guests:
Ruth Greenberg
Ruth is an award-winning, London-based screenwriter and writer-director with a specialist interest in female protagonists and elevated genre. RUN is Ruth’s directorial debut, produced by Helen Gladders (TUESDAY) and Ivana MacKinnon (BEAST, TUESDAY), and funded by Film4 and BFI NETWORK, starring Niamh Algar (CENSOR). Ruth’s British boxing film, SUGAR, is in late-stage development with Wild Swim Films and set to be her debut feature as a writer-director. As a screenwriter, Ruth’s prehistoric Horror, THE ORIGIN, is in post-production with Oliver Kassman (SAINT MAUD).
Since 2016, Ruth has been commissioned as a screenwriter by NETFLIX US, the BFI, BBC Films, Film4, Creative Scotland and Northern Ireland Screen. Alongside other projects, she is currently developing a NETFLIX original horror feature with Imaginarium and Vertigo Films, US, and an early-medieval horror with director Nora Fingscheidt (SYSTEMCRASHER) and producer Philippa Tsang at DCM. In 2018, her Indian-set thriller script, THE SPARK, produced by Rooks Nest, was awarded the Tribeca Film Institute Filmmakers Fund. Her post-apocalyptic British western, THE COMPETITORS, topped the Brit List 2016, and is positioned as her second directorial feature. Ruth has a PhD in Screenwriting from UEA and is represented by Tanya Tillett at The Agency, London.
Ruicheng Liang
Ruicheng Liang is a passionate award-winning documentary filmmaker from China, with a background in new media journalism. Having just finished his MA in Documentary Film at the University of the Arts London, he specialises in making observational character-driven short docs.
Aiming to question the neglected issues in society and celebrate love and passion, his films discuss social injustice, family and migration, arts and crafts, and LGBTQ+, which have been screened at festivals including San Diego International ShortsFest, OutSouth Queer Film Festival, Brighton Rocks Film Festival, TweetFest Film Festival and Walthamstow International Film Festival.
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