Meet the Member: Hope Elliott-Kemp, Writer-Director

Hope Elliott-Kemp spends her days dreaming up stories that keep you awake at night. An award-winning British writer-director and provocative Gen-Z voice, she creates work that’s funny, fearless and original: danger with a heart, and something to say.

She was longlisted for BIFA Best Debut Screenwriter 2025 for Lifehack, a genre-defying heist thriller produced by Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch, Day Watch, Wanted). Her films have screened at Oscar and BAFTA-qualifying festivals worldwide, while her creative advertising work — for clients including Netflix, Disney, and Channel 4 — has reached audiences of hundreds of millions.

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Q: Tell us a little bit about your journey to working in film. Did you always want to work in this industry?

When I was fourteen I watched Carrie (1976) for the first time and it changed everything for me. It was the first time I watched a film and thought, ‘I wish I’d made that’.

My debut feature as a writer, Lifehack, follows a group of teenagers who hustle their way into a heist that changes their lives. In so many ways I think my own career mirrors their story.

I started out writing and directing short films, ads, and music videos, each one a gamble toward something bigger. When it came time to make my first feature, we had to assemble the right team, plan every detail, and then throw those plans away when the stakes were raised. It was pure creativity and adrenaline.

Q: What do you love about writing and directing?

I’ve made the greatest friends of all time through making films. Extraordinary, talented aliens who are brought together to tell a story we believe in. It’s like being in a cult, except we haven’t been branded (yet).

Writing is an addiction; if I don’t write for a week, I feel strange. Directing is about bringing it to all to life and letting an audience escape with whatever they need.

Q: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

I once had the honour of meeting Ken Loach, who told me to be “bold, bloody and perverse, but not perverted”. I think that’s advice for life.

Q: What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced?

Making a film is a miracle. Every moment is a challenge. The trick is to keep going. If you believe in telling the story, you’ll do anything to make it happen.

We worked on Lifehack for five years. A behind-the-scenes tell-all of making the film would be as messy, hilarious and demented as the film itself.

Q: What’s next for you?

I’m currently working on original, horror films and developing a thriller series set in a high-security prison.

One review called Lifehack a “dopamine onslaught of a film”. My favourite genre is stress and my favourite characters are all desperately flawed, so hopefully many more onslaughts to come.