Samantha Horley
stage 2 sales & distribution consultant
stage 2 script consultant
Consultant, writer, lecturer.
After twenty years in international film sales, development, production and marketing for companies including Summit Entertainment and PolyGram, and as MD for The Salt Company, Samantha is now a development producer, script doctor, slate advisor, project assessor specialising in identifying and honing the commercial viability of film and TV projects at any stage.
Clients have included BAFTA and Oscar winning producers David Parfitt and Gareth Ellis Unwin and director producer Gurinder Chadha for whom she assessed and helped revise Bend It’s entire slate. She is also an external assessor for The New Zealand Film Commission.
She tutors and lectures widely, is currently a university supervisor for London Film School and Exeter University on their MA in International Film Business, and in the past for NFTS, BAFTA, BFI Network, Ffilm Cymru, Arvon and London Screenwriters’ Festival.
Combining lecturing and development, Samantha has worked with up-and-coming filmmakers on international schemes and labs, most recently MyLab: A Malaysian script development and mentoring scheme for South East Asian filmmakers; and BFI and Screen Australia’s Attagirl: A female, female-identifying and non-binary script and career development scheme.
Samantha was the founder of The Vipers Nest, the creative collective for first-time filmmakers, and she still enjoys working with and mentoring up-and-coming talent which has lead to EP credits on two football documentaries: We Are The Geordies and Tosh, on John Toshack, despite having no interest in football.
Samantha is now a screenwriter repped at United Agents. Her first screenplay was optioned by Eleven Films for TV; she was awarded development funding by Ffilm Cymru; is currently out to cast on a romcom she rewrote for the producer of Amy Schumer’s I Feel Pretty; with other projects under option and commissioned. She also serves on The Writers Guild of Great Britain Film Committee and Equality and Diversity Committee and is a BAFTA and BIFA juror.
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