Tobi Kyeremateng on joining the Film Forward programme

Film Forward Step Up Role: Production manager 

Tobi Kyeremateng is part of the latest cohort of Film Forward, a ScreenSkills initiative designed to create change in the UK film industry by supporting experienced Black and Asian professionals to advance to more senior roles. She is stepping up to production manager in film.

Tobi, who grew up in south London and is of Nigerian-Ghanian heritage, served a production apprenticeship in the theatre where she worked with community groups and young people.

Her move into the screen industry came through working with poets and artists who were experimenting with working across different art forms including short films. “We all didn't know what we were doing,” Tobi says, “but I started producing them and we sort of figured it out and learnt on the go. We'd all come from different spaces and angles and we held each other.”

Tobi’s break into the film industry came during lockdown when she produced Blue Corridor 15 for the BBC - “my first proper short film. What I'd done before was super-experimental” - and which was screened at Sundance Film Festival. She also produced How to Be a Person, a short series for Channel 4, which won a BAFTA.

Despite her early success Tobi says: “I'm still learning, and there's still a lot of newness for me.”

Because of the unusual route she has taken into the industry - “People find my journey interesting and they're intrigued by how I got here and how I made it happen” - Tobi has largely been able to, as she puts it, “curate” who is on her sets but as she moves into projects with bigger budgets: “There's more bartering now, I would say.” She adds: “I think I'm quite a driven person and honest about what I do and don't know. But I'm 28, I'm a Black woman, and there are a lot of assumptions about my skills, my ability, what they feel I can and cannot do, what kind work they think I'm going to be interested in. Some people get ample experiences, try something and maybe fail, but get another project, but I'm hyper-conscious that everything I do must be as good as possible.”

Tobi is excited about being part of the Film Forward initiative. “I know someone who was on the last cohort. We spoke very candidly about it after I told him I wanted to move into long-form and I didn't know how to do that,” she says. “He said Film Forward gave him tangible new skills, being able to meet people and being presented in a particular way. As a Black man working in an industry full of people who don't look like him, to be able to have the backing of his peers and have people champion you, saying, 'We believe in this person as someone who is going to do a great job' really helps.

“I'm also excited to be able to learn new skills because mostly I've been learning on the job.” She thinks part of Film Forward's strength is that it gives people “access to people that I feel at the moment I can't access. I'm going to be meeting people and able to ask about their specific roles and how they work.”

Tobi thinks Film Forward is important in allowing people to shadow people in more senior positions in film and equipping them with the skills so they can step up to those roles in future productions. “We need to have more diversity in senior roles.”

It’s a programme whose direct ties to industry and opportunities for connection also appeal to Tobi: “Film Forward is also useful in terms of us being able to meet people who might employ us in the future. Networking is part of the film industry but it's also about people in positions of influence giving jobs to the same people. Sometimes it's not just that you don't know the right people but that those individuals always hire the same people. I hope when I'm in a position to, I can make positive change.

“I'm really excited to see what Film Forward brings and developing my skillset.”