Lou Spain

Lou joined the National Film and TV School after a succesful five-year career in producing and directing youth television for UK broadcasters such as Flextech and SKY. She graduated as a producer from the NFTS with several award-winning shorts and the RTS nominated One Eye, a collaboration between Liana Dogini & Lynne Ramsay (Ratcatcher and Movern Caller) which screened in Cannes.

Lou then began development and screenplay consultancy for such compaines as Pathé, Momentum Pictures and Fineline Features. She went on to work as a  line/development producer for a number of established independent UK companies including Kudos Film and TV. Most notably Lou was Associate Producer for Kudos on the feature film Among Giants, written by Simon Beaufoy (The Full Monty, Slumdog Millionaire), funded by the BBC, UK Film Council, Capitol Films and Yorkshire Media and distributed by 20th Century Fox. She also worked as a development producer on an opera for BBC2 /ENO based on Jules Verne's Dr Ox's Experiment (director Atom Egoyan), written by novelist Blake Morrison (And When Did You Last see Your Father). Lou then broadened her experience in the Pay TV arena as Head of Acquistions at the Hallmark Movie Channel (UK), buying classic British drama from its launch.

After four years as Head of Studies establishing The London Film Academy (a Skillset Media Academy Partner), Lou co-founded Whistling Thorn Films with Stephen Marsh. Since its inception, she has led the development of a sizeable slate of film scripts, adaptations and treatments with established UK writing talent, a six-part drama series with the BBC and several short dramas. Lou has also executive produced two short films backed by the UK Film Council. Odd Shoe, by Paul Cotter, and Off Season, by Deena Lombardi, have screened at festivals around the world including Palm Springs, Rhode Island and SXSW. Lou recently wrote her first feature script based on the classic short story The Yellow Wallpaper.