LEON CHAMBERS (Producer/Director)

Leon’s short films, including Stolen Youth, The Long Lonely Walk and Office Romance 2.0, have played at film festivals all over the world and won a number of awards. His last short film Lonely Hearts (written by Simon Lord) won Best Short Film at the Chicago United Film Festival 2013. The Long Lonely Walk (starring Jeremy Sheffield, Sylvia Syms and Tessa Peake-Jones) won the same award three years earlier, as well as winning Best Film Editing at the Grand Off Film Awards in Poland, along with three other awards. His films have screened at major festivals including Palm Springs ShortFest, Raindance, Newport Beach, AFI Dallas and the San Diego Film Festival. Office Romance 2.0 (a comedy short about a woman’s affections for an unlikely work colleague) screened at the prestigious Short Shorts and Asia in Japan and was then offered exclusive distribution in Japan. Leon produces and directs audio recordings for a number of major publishers, having previously worked as a sound engineer specializing in radio drama. He has recorded over 300 hours of radio drama for the BBC, including several Sony Award winners.

SIMON LORD (Screenwriter)

Simon grew up in Paris and studied English at Oxford, and currently lives in London with a Viking and a dog. In addition to Above the Clouds, Simon wrote feature drama Jellyfish, which premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival, followed by Edinburgh International Film Festival, where it was awarded “Best Performance in a British Film” for stars Liv Hill and Sinead Matthews. Simon and Leon Chambers are currently in development with their follow-up to Above The Clouds, sci-fi satire A Certain Tomorrow. Simon is also working with Braintrust Pictures on Bartek and the Duke, which was previously selected for Edinburgh’s Talent Lab 2015, and for the Connections mentoring scheme with writer-director Peter Ettedgui (McQueen). His other projects include coming-of-age drama Rabbit with So&So Productions (A Moving Image) and steampunk fantasy Cinema of Dreamswith Inflammable Films (Tyrannosaur, God’s Own Country). Simon’s previous short films include Two Dancers (starring Carl Barât of the Libertines), Lonely Hearts (also directed by Leon Chambers) and Barry Glitter (produced through the NFTS).