Ben Pickering

Bens first foray into moviemaking came in 1995 when at just 16 he produced and starred in his very first feature the comingofage drama Backstreet Two years later he produced and starred in the lowbudget gangster thriller Tragic Irony Made on 16mm for just 6000 and a cross between Pulp Fiction and Shallow Grave it took a sideswipe at the seedier side of Nineties Britain After making his directorial debut with the pilot for docudrama series How To Get Away With Murder Ben stepped back from the film industry to read Politics at Swansea University getting to the final year of a PhD on the European Union and even running for the UK Parliament before returning to his first love film In 2009 he produced the 35mm short Beached in conjunction with The London Film School The short screened at the Strasbourg International Film Festival as well as the Short Film Corner at Cannes After spending many a weekend at Londons Raindance film training courses he finally took the plunge and directed his first feature crime thriller Two Days in the Smoke A reimaging of his earlier film Tragic Irony the reboot starred Matt di Angelo Borgia Lili Bordán Battlestar Galactica Blood and Chrome and Alan Ford Snatch The London and Parisset feature was released in the UK in October 2014 as The Smoke and internationally throughout 2015 as London Payback After coproducing Isle of Man heist caper Ratted Out and associate producing psychological thriller The Stranger he returned to the directors chair for the Cornwallset portmanteau Welcome to Curiosity starring Amrita Acharia Game of Thrones Richard Blackwood Anuvahood and Stephen Marcus Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels The film is due for release in 2017