Q&A: In conversation with the creative team behind The Colour Room, a Sky Original film

The Colour Room follows the journey of a determined, working-class woman, Clarice Cliff, as she breaks the glass ceiling and revolutionises the workplace in the 20th century.

In the grey industrial British midlands of the 1920s, creative young factory worker Clarice Cliff (Phoebe Dynevor) makes the bold move to take a lower paying job at a prestigious pottery owned by Colley Shorter (Matthew Goode). Driven by imagination and ambition, she fights her way through the deep prejudice of an industry caught in devastating economic hardship as she defies expectation and circumstance to become the designer of her own unprecedented ‘Bizarre’ range, ensuring the factory’s survival and becoming a trailblazer of Art deco. Watch the trailer here.

Hosted by Rhianna Dhillon, in this event we’ll be joined by some of the female creative team behind the film, writer Claire Peate, director Claire McCarthy, producers Thembisa Cochrane and Georgie Paget and leading on-screen talent, Phoebe Dynevor.

The panel will discuss bringing the life of a feminist icon and pioneering artist, Clarice Cliffe, to the screen in a story rooted in the industrial period of the Midlands and offer behind the scenes insight to the making of the film.

The Colour Room will be released on Sky Cinema and in cinemas on 12 November.

British actress, Phoebe Dynevor, is best known for her lead role in Shondaland's wildly successful, Bridgerton. Phoebe stars in the leading role as Daphne Bridgerton alongside Rege-Jean Page and Jonathan Bailey. Daphne, the picture-perfect young debutante, has been waiting her entire life to make her grand debut on the marriage mart.

2021 has seen many exciting announcements for Phoebe, most recently that she is set to executive produce and star in Exciting Times, adapted from Naoise Dolan's debut novel of the same name. Phoebe will also star in the upcoming thriller; I Heart Murder for SONY and will feature in the British remake of Call My Agent. More imminently, she will take on the leading role as Clarice Cliff in Sky Cinema's The Colour Room.

Phoebe’s credits to date also include Snatch (2017), Younger (2017), Prisoner’s Wives (2012), The Village (2013), Dickensian (2015) and Waterloo Road (2009).

Claire Peate is a novelist and scriptwriter. Her script for The Colour Room won a BAFTA Rocliffe new writing award and is her first feature.

Claire McCarthy is a writer, director, producer and visual artist, Claire most recently completed production on The Colour Room. Prior to this she was set-up / lead director and EP for SKY series Domina (2020). Prior to this she was sole director and EP on The Luminaries, a screen adaptation of the Man Booker Prize winning novel, starring Eva Green and Eve Hewson, produced by Working Title, Freemantle and BBC1.

Her feature film Ophelia premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 2019. Her award-winning feature film, The Waiting City, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Claire adapted for the screen and directed the centrepiece segment of Tim Winton’s celebrated novel The Turning.

Her upcoming feature, The Personal History of Rachel Dupree, which Claire wrote and will direct, is with Amazon Studios, and stars Academy Award winning actress Viola Davis.

Claire was featured in Variety in the "10 Directors to Watch” 2018.

Thembisa Cochrane is the co-founder of Caspian Films and producer of The Colour Room. She also produced D.R. Hood’s sophomore film Us Among the Stones (BFI London Film Festival 2019).

Previously, Thembisa worked for Spier Films UK where she produced the international co-production The Harvesters (2018) in selection Cannes: Un Certain Regard 2018 and acted as an executive on films in development and production including Young Ones (2014); The Salvation (2014); The Price of Sugar (2013) and Of Good Report (2013), winner of 7 South African Film & TV Awards. Prior to this, she was a founder of video agency DHP Studios in London and she holds a degree in Film & Media Studies from the University of Cape Town.

Georgie Paget is the co-founder of Caspian Films and producer of The Colour Room. She also produced D.R Hood’s sophomore film Us Among the Stones (BFI London Film Festival 2019).

Prior to founding Caspian Films, Georgie produced the internationally award-winning documentary Queens of Syria (2014) and the highly successful and critically acclaimed UK theatre tour of Syria: The Trojan Women (2016) in co-production with the Young Vic Theatre. Georgie was one of the founders of the Taiwan Film Festival UK and Nordic Countries, partnering with Curzon Cinemas and Tate Modern. She began her career assisting the award-winning director Joanna Hogg on Unrelated (2007) and her second feature Archipelago (2010).

Host

Rhianna Dhillon has been a film critic for 10 years, beginning her career at BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra as their in-house film critic. Now a film and TV critic on BBC6Music’s Breakfast Show with Lauren Laverne, Rhianna is also the co-host of BIFA's This is My Cinema Podcast as well as The Radio Times Podcast with Jane Garvey.

Event Schedule:

17:55: Please join the webinar waiting room

18:00: Rhianna to lead conversation

18:45: Attendee Q&A opens

19:00: Finish

How will the online event work?

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