MELANIE IREDLAE

Deputy Director, Sheffield Doc/Fest

Key Expertise: Bid-writing/Fundraising, Income Generation, Programming, Audience Development, Audience Engagement and Education, Working with Staff and Volunteers, Business Development, Budgets and Financial Management, Marketing.

Melanie Iredale is a film curator and festival producer with experience of working in film exhibition and events across the North of England for the past ten years. Starting her career at the Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle, Melanie went on to manage Northern Lights Film Festival in Newcastle-Gateshead, and then work as film programme director at the Scandinavian mixed arts event, NICE-Festival in Liverpool, while freelance work included project coordination for AV Festival and Northern Film & Media.

In 2009, Melanie was appointed as director of Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival on the English-Scottish Border, leading the festival artistically and strategically, and responsible for a dramatic growth in audience numbers, national profile and commissions over the past five years. Work commissioned by Melanie at Berwick has gone on to be exhibited at festivals and galleries across the UK, to New York, Hong Kong and beyond. Ben Russell’s Greetings to the Ancestors, co-commissioned by Melanie as part of Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival in 2014 was recently awarded the Tiger Shorts Award at Rotterdam International Film Festival. From 2010, Melanie was brought in to work with Sheffield Doc/Fest on a freelance basis as a development consultant, raising funds for arts and public-facing projects.

In November 2014, Melanie started a new job as Deputy Director of Sheffield Doc/Fest – one of the top three documentary festivals and marketplaces in the world. Melanie’s role involves overseeing the film programme, industry conference and marketplace teams. She is now the festival's Interim Director.

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