Catherine Leonard

Chuckie McEwan (she/they) is a BIFA Longlisted and BAFTA recognised film producer, with 15+ years experience. Her commercial clients include CHANEL, Virgin Media, Red Bull and XBox. Chuckie co-founded Grey Moth Originals, which actively facilitates industry access routes for underrepresented filmmakers. To date the initiative has invested over £100k from commercial company profits, and completed 20+ shorts and one feature. She has lectured at UAL, University of Southampton, and Met Film School, and hosted filmmaker events and workshops with Girls in Film, BBC Comedy and BAFTA Connect. She is an alumni of the BFI x NFTS Beyond Shorts talent development programme, and is currently developing a feature film with the BFI.

I am an artist living on the edge of The New Forest. I use folklore, folksong, old customs, games and rituals to explore contemporary issues particularly social and economic disparity. Country living can be a strange mix of bounty and hopelessness but when people have access to their own strong and sinuous roots, their own history and stories they have anchorage and hope. I seek the stories that connect us and as an artist I’m thinking of different ways of pinning them up on the metaphorical village hall notice board for all to see. Alongside my own practice I run drawing workshops as The Village Hall Draw and community workshops around the New Forest working with Culture in Common and Hampshire Cultural Heritage amongst others.

I am a theatre-maker and director working across Hampshire and the UK. My background is in new writing and site-responsive performance; I ran High Hearted Theatre with writer Marcelo Dos Santos, making productions for Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse, Greenwich + Docklands International Festival, Southwark Playhouse, Brighton Fringe, Omnibus London and more. I currently work mostly in participatory practice and co-creation, creating work in collaboration with professional creatives and communities. I am also an artist-researcher with a particular interest in place, space and identity, and how theatre for social change.