Team

Duncan Cowles, Director

Duncan Cowles (He/Him) is a BAFTA Scotland Award winning documentary filmmaker whose films are often known for their heart and humour. 

He has directed a number of short films over the years such as ‘Directed by Tweedie’, ‘Isabella’ and ‘Taking Stock’. His shorts have screened at A-list festivals such as BFI London Film Festival, and won a selection of awards at festivals such as Glasgow Short Film Festival, Open City Documentary Festival, BFI Future Film Festival, Hamburg Short Film Festival and The Smalls. 

His first feature documentary ‘Silent Men’, supported by Screen Scotland & The Whickers, explores the theme of men’s mental health and premiered at Sheffield Doc/Fest in 2024 and was awarded a Special Mention in the International First Features Competition. 

He’s won a Royal Television Society Award and been nominated three times for Best UK short film at the London Critics Circle Awards. His shorts have been regularly featured on platforms such as Short of the Week, Vimeo Staff Picks, BFI Player, It’s Nice That and BBCiPlayer. 

Duncan has been commissioned to write and direct documentaries for Channel 4, STV, BBC Scotland, BBC Radio 4, TED, Adobe and more. In 2020 Duncan was commissioned to make x6 30minute episodes of his own new documentary TV series ‘Scary Adult Things’ which looks at the struggles of the millennial generation for BBC Scotland and BBCiplayer which aired in March 2021.

Sandra Leeming, Producer

Sandra (They/Them) is the founding director of Sandslate Films, a Glasgow-based company formed in 2023, which aims to provide in-depth producer experience and production support services to documentary directors, and to build production management capacity in Scotland.

Sandra has a passion for telling compelling stories and creating engaging content that informs, educates, and inspires audiences.

Sandra has over 20 years of experience in various roles in the film and television production industry, including Series Producer, Line Producer, and Head of Production. Sandra was the Head of Production at Dartmouth Films, a feature documentary production company in London, where she was credited as the Line Producer on 11 feature documentaries from 2008 to 2018. For three years during that time, Sandra also Series Produced a weekly one-hour multi-content factual series for digital and online channels, directing many of the long- form interviews.

Prior to that, Sandra oversaw the production of literally hundreds of hours of content for different genres and platforms, such as Channel 4 queer programmes, factual entertainment programmes, Dispatches, BBC Panoramas, and archaeology programmes for Nat Geo and Discovery.

Rebecca Day, Producer

Rebecca Day (She/Her) is a BACP (British Association of Counselling & Psychotherapy) registered psychotherapist & clinical supervisor and was previously, a documentary producer. She began her producing career with the Scottish Documentary Institute (SDI) in 2008, where she produced and developed several features and worked on innovative outreach and audience engagement campaigns for SDI, most notably the successful campaign around the award winning documentaries, I Am Breathing and Seven Songs for a Long Life.

She worked on the impact team on Evelyn, a documentary about the filmmaker’s own struggle losing his brother to suicide. In 2018 she produced Becoming Animal, a Swiss/Scottish co-production, directed by Emma Davie & Peter Mettler.

Rebecca launched her company Film In Mind in 2018 and is at the forefront of tackling mental health issues for documentary makers. She provides consultancies, workshops and therapeutic support to filmmakers working in difficult situations and with vulnerable people.

She is also a co-founder of DocuMentality, an international initiative designed to elevate the conversation around mental health in the documentary community. She has been a guest speaker and mentor on panels and at workshops with organisations such as BAFTA, IDFA, Berlinale, Grierson Trust, IDA, Video Consortium, WIFTV and Sheffield Doc/Fest.

Erika Iesse, Editor

Erika Iesse (She/Her) is a Scottish based editor with over 15 years of experience in documentary and fiction. Her work focuses on rhythm and narrative. She has edited award winning non-fiction short films and feature-length programmes for a number of high profile broadcasters such as BBC, STV and Red Bull TV. Notable projects include the short documentaries Farewell to Adventure, West Country and Our Fathers all made in collaboration with the Scottish Documentary Institute. Silent Men is her first theatrical feature-length documentary.

Richard Luke, Composer

Richard Luke (He/Him) is a Glasgow-based multi-instrumentalist composer and producer who specialises in minimal piano, orchestral strings, glitches and beats. His music is used in award-winning film, TV and games as well as for release on labels, most recently scoring the EIFF Powell and Pressburger award-winning film, A Cat Called Dom and BAFTA Scotland-winning short Betty.

Keith Duncan, Sound Design

Keith Duncan (He/Him) is an Edinburgh-based musician, vocalist, sound engineer and sound designer who runs a thriving sound studio in Edinburgh’s foremost creative hub Summerhall. Keith designs sound for live action, animation, music promos and documentary, in both short and long form. His work has screened at events and platforms across the world as diverse as the Scottish Parliament, New Chitose Airport Animation Festival and Sundance.

Keith’s previous work includes BAFTA-winning The Making Of Longbird, working with composer Atzi and director Will Anderson. Have Heart also directed by Will Anderson which screened at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival, live action shorts V Day by Lucas Kao and Ecstatic Glymphatic  by Sahra Bhimji, Scottish BAFTA-winning Isabella by Ross Hogg and Duncan Cowles, and Scottish BAFTA-winning Hart’s Desire by Gavin Robinson, as well as around 20 short documentaries produced by the Scottish Documentary Institute.

Jon Bruce, Colourist

Jon Bruce (He/Him) is the co-owner of Scottish based post production facility BSQUARED.

Jon is a creative colourist and finishing artist who has consistently worked across high-end scripted and factual productions, delivering to all of the major UK broadcasters and streaming services. Primarily using Davinci Resolve and Fusion, Jon has been involved in recent projects such as The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Shetland, Six Four, My Old School, Crime, Mogwai: If The Stars Had a Sound and Silent Men.

Alice Powell, Edit Consultant

Alice Powell (She/Her) is a London based film editor working across drama, documentary and everything in between…

Since graduating from the National Film and Television School in 2007 she has acquired experience in both documentary and fiction films that have been screened at various film festivals internationally including the Sheffield Doc/Fest, South by Southwest, Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival, the Berlin International Film Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival.

Alice also has experience editing broadcast television programmes and commercials. Her emphasis as a film editor is to collaborate with producers and directors to tell stories with integrity and a delicate human touch.

Alan Berliner, Story Consultant

Alan Berliner (He/Him) is an award winning filmmaker based in NYC whose experimental documentary films, First Cousin Once Removed (2013), Wide Awake (2006), The Sweetest Sound (2001), Nobody’s Business (1996), Intimate Stranger (1991), and The Family Album (1986), have been broadcast all over the world, and received awards, prizes, and retrospectives at many major international film festivals.

The San Francisco International Film Festival called Berliner, “America’s foremost cinematic essayist.” The Florida Film Festival called him “the modern master of personal documentary filmmaking.” All of his films are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.