EXCLUSIVE: Reclaim The Frame has partnered with Sony Pictures Television to launch Back in the Frame, a new six-month talent development programme for women film directors and producers returning to work after a career break.
Applications for the programme are now open. It is free to apply for and participate in. The programme is open to what is described as experienced UK-based women and marginalised gender directors and producers working across fiction and documentary film who are returning to the industry after time away.
Running from September 2026 to March 2027, Back in the Frame will feature twelve UK-based participants through a programme of three in-person labs in London, two online industry sessions and one-to-one mentoring. The programme will be led by Reclaim The Frame Exec Director Melanie Iredale and producer Camilla Wren. Organisers have said the programme is designed to “support professional re-entry through industry recalibration, employability support, rights education, peer learning, mentoring and structured group coaching.”
“We are consistently seeing experienced filmmakers leave the industry not because they lack ambition or talent, but because the structures around working life do not support return,” Melanie Iredale, Director of Reclaim The Frame, said in a statement.
“This programme is about changing that – by creating a route back into the industry, and a peer support network along the way.”
Research from Carers UK, BECTU and Raising Films recently found that over half of the workforce has experienced periods out of work, and that there are currently around 5.8 million unpaid carers in the UK, with around 60% being women.
Sony Pictures Entertainment’s funding comes through the SPT Creative Diversity Fund, which was established in 2021 by Sony Pictures Television’s International Production division to support the recruitment, development, support and retention of under-represented talent within the television industry.
