Director Mentee Déva Palmier is having an amazing year being mentored by Gurinder Chadha. Her short film, CAN YOU HEAR ME? premiered at Chicago International Film Festival and screened at AFI Fest in LA where Déva was invited to pitch her comedy thriller, AUTOROUTE D’AMOUR and her horrors THE BOOK and BABY to top Hollywood execs at Kodak Connect. BABY has just been short-listed to the reserve list for Darklight, a WarpX/Threshold studios women’s only director’s scheme for horror films.

Says Deva "Gurinder is a genius on script structure, fixing narrative holes and strengthening characters. She helped me take the first draft of my comedy thriller AUTOROUTE D’AMOUR to a professional level. AUTOROUTE D’AMOUR, which had been turned down by a couple of production companies, has just received positive feedback from a film financing company that read it as a writing sample. They’ve opened the door to me because they felt AUTOROUTE D’AMOUR was 'especially well written'."

2007 will see producer Mentee Abigail Davies again script editing Channel4 and IWC Media’s emerging talent drama production scheme COMING UP – working with IWC Media’s Executive Producer Judy Counihan and Producers, Sol Gatti-Pascual and Hannah Weaver. Abigail is also joining Peter Barton of Parapet Productions in developing THE SILENCE by Don Watson (The Man Who Sued God), a feature telling an explosive untold story from WW1. Abigail is now working as Script Editor for Simon Bosanquet and Mark Huffam (Dark North Entertainment) on their horror film slate for the Northern Ireland Film and TV Commission. Abigail was introduced to Simon at a Guiding Lights event.

Says Abigail, “The film industry is such a tough business to get a foot-hold in, especially when you come from the regions. Guiding Lights has made a real difference – there’s been an openness and generosity from everyone I’ve approached on the back of being part of the scheme. Above all, my mentor Steve Clark Hall has been fantastic - with his interested support and trenchant advice, I feel miles more confident that I can achieve my ambition to get my first feature made.”

Ben and Chris Blaine are being mentored by director Gillies MacKinnon. They completed their short film Hallo Panda in October last year and it premiered at the Brief Encounters film festival in November '06. The film took pride of place in a retrospective of their short films which played at the ICA in January. As well as shooting adverts and music videos over the last few months they have been putting their writing hats back on and are developing several feature scripts, including a modern-day Robin Hood thriller and a feature version of Hallo Panda.

Writer Mentee Mo Blackwood, whose Mentor is Julian Fellowes, is now being represented by Matthew Bates of talent agency Sayle Screen. Her feature project 'Pieces of the Dream' is with producer Gayle Griffiths at Wild Horses Productions. Gayle has also optioned another of Mo's feature projects, a charmingly quirky romance called 'Saying I Love You in Slow Motion', which is set mainly in Estonia.