In the final episode of Coming Up Next, Jane Featherstone, Founder of Sister Pictures, considers the challenges ahead for the screen industries.
Featherstone, who has co-produced many popular shows, such as Broadchurch and Chernobyl (2019), draws together key themes present throughout the Coming Up Next series, including the need for diversity, the future of screenwriting and production, and lessons learned during the coronavirus pandemic so far.
She talks about the many paradoxes that have emerged during the pandemic, including considering how we have grown closer to nature and yet more reliant on technology, and what that will mean for the future of storytelling. Featherstone says writers have always reflected the world around them while also looking to the future, and they need to do that now more than ever before.
Featherstone also notes how the pandemic has ‘made us a smaller world, but exposed division’. She discusses frankly how Sister Pictures, like many other screen industry companies, needs to do more when it comes to equality, diversity and inclusion.
Drawing the series to a close, and speaking of the changes and challenges ahead, Featherstone notes, ‘there are some reckonings coming’.
