BAFTA Breakthrough 2024: Mawaan Rizwan, Nava Mau Among 43 “Must-Watch” Young Creatives
Award-winning actor Mawaan Rizwan and Baby Reindeer star Nava Mau are among this year’s BAFTA Breakthrough cohort.
Spotlighting 43 “must-watch” creatives working across film, games and television in the U.K., U.S. and India, the flagship talent initiative is supported by Netflix and aims to provide a springboard for young creatives in costume design, production, casting, editing, games design, performance, directing, composing and cinematography.
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Rizwan is best known for his role in BBC Three comedy Juice, which landed him a BAFTA award in May this year. Mau broke through with her performance in the wildly popular Netflix show Baby Reindeer in April.
Top Boy editor Shahnaz Dulaimy and Kyla Harris of We Might Regret This are among the U.K. Breakthroughs as Jih-E Peng, cinematographer on Girls Will Be Girls and Juliana Hoffpauir, costume designer on the Glen Powell-led comedy Hit Man, made the U.S. list. Game producer Abhinav Chokhavatia and director Christo Tomy are included in the India Breakthroughs.
Past BAFTA Breakthrough stars include Florence Pugh, Josh O’Connor, Ambika Mod, Bella Ramsey, Letitia Wright, Paapa Essiedu, Jessie Buckley and Tom Holland. You can read more about how BAFTA chooses its Breakthroughs and how the program helps develop careers here, where Ade Rawcliffe, chair of the Learning, Inclusion & Talent Committee at BAFTA, spoke to The Hollywood Reporter in depth about the scheme, explaining it helps give creatives confidence.
Rawcliffe, also a board member who sat in on the executive group for Breakthrough U.K. this year, said of the initiative: “It’s profile… It gives people confidence. You will have access to people who have done it before. They’ll help you with those things that are difficult. What BAFTA does is connect you to that. Being an Academy, [it means] people that have done things before are sharing their knowledge.”
Awarded to those in the midst, or on the cusp, of their breakthrough moment, the year-long initiative includes one-to-one meetings and career guidance, full voting membership and access to BAFTA and networking events. Meetings have been set up with Cillian Murphy, Paul Rudd, Emma Thompson, Danny Boyle, Paul Greengrass, Barry Jenkins, Martin McDonagh, Abi Morgan, Lesley Manville and Brad Pitt, among many others.
This year’s Breakthrough U.K. cohort was selected by five specialist sub-committees comprising industry figures with BAFTA and Netflix representatives. In the U.S., a jury of leading cross-industry figures including producer Kerstin Emhoff and actor John David Washington selected this year’s cohort.
The Breakthrough India jury was chaired by film producer and Breakthrough India ambassador Guneet Monga Kapoor and also included vice president of content, Netflix India Monika Shergill and filmmaker Sushmit Ghosh.
“This year we have an amazing roster of casting directors, producers, writers, performers, lead artists, cinematographers, lead developers, and more,” said BAFTA CEO Jane Millichip. “We urge the industry to take note. A huge thank you to Netflix, whose support makes BAFTA Breakthrough possible.”
Below is the full list of this year’s BAFTA Breakthrough cohort.
U.K. BREAKTHROUGHS (21):
Alice Russell, Director – If the Streets Were on Fire
Beth Park, Lead Performance Director – Black Myth: Wukong
Clair Titley, Director – The Contestant
Cobbie Yates, Costume Designer – Layla
Daf James, Creator/Writer/Executive Producer/Musical Director – Lost Boys & Fairies
Fred Hoffman, Art Director – Paper Trail
Georgina Hurcombe, Creator/Producer/Director – Pop Paper City
Harry Gilbert, Casting Director – G’wed
Jennifer English, Performer – Baldur’s Gate 3
Kyla Harris*, Lead Performer/Co-Creator/Co-Writer/Associate Producer – We Might Regret This
Lauren Sequeira, Creator/Writer/Executive Producer – Domino Day
Lee Getty*, Co-Creator/Co-Writer/Associate Producer – We Might Regret This
Loran Dunn, Producer – Hoard
Luna Carmoon, Writer/Director – Hoard
Luned Tonderai, Series Director – Miriam: Death Of A Reality Star
Mawaan Rizwan, Performer/Writer/Creator/Executive Producer – Juice
Otto Baxter, Writer/Director/Performer – The Puppet Asylum
Poulomi Basu, Creator/Director/Writer/Art Director – MAYA: The Birth of a Superhero
Rochelle Newman, Producer – White Nanny Black Child
Shahnaz Dulaimy, Editor – Top Boy
Sophie Knowles, Lead Artist – Viewfinder
*applied as a team
U.S. BREAKTHROUGHS (13):
Angela Walker Patton**, Director – Daughters
Elaine Gómez, Creative Director – Blink Land
Erica Tremblay, Writer/Director – Fancy Dance
Hanna Park, Editor – Bottoms
Jih-E Peng, Cinematographer – Girls Will Be Girls
Joy Ngiaw, Composer – WondLa
Juliana Hoffpauir, Costume Designer – Hit Man
Karrie Shirou Shao, Game Writer/Lead Designer – Pacific Drive
Nafisa Kaptownwala, Casting Director – Dìdi
Natalie Rae**, Director – Daughters
Nava Mau, Performer – Baby Reindeer
Nicole He, Creative Director – The Crush House
Sean Wang, Writer/Director – Dìdi
**applied as a team
INDIA BREAKTHROUGHS (9):
Abhinav Chokhavatia, Game Producer – Down and Out
Christo Tomy, Director – Curry and Cyanide: The Jolly Joseph Case
Deepa Bhatia, Writer/Director/Producer – First Act
Dhiman Karmakar, Sound Designer/Production Sound Mixer – Amar Singh Chamkila
Jaydeep Sarkar, Showrunner/Series Director/Executive Producer – Rainbow Rishta
Monisha Thyagarajan, Series Producer – The Hunt for Veerappan
Neeraj Kumar, Producer/Lead Developer – Artifice: War Tactics
Sindhu Sreenivasa Murthy, Writer/Director/Performer – Aachar & Co.
Varun Grover, Writer/Director – All India Rank
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