Prano Bailey-Bond is a filmmaker who grew up on a diet of Twin Peaks in the depths of a strange Welsh community. Her work invokes imaginative worlds, fusing a dark vocabulary with eerie allure, revealing how beauty resides in strange places.

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Her debut feature, CENSOR, backed by the BFI, Film4 and Ffilm Cymru Wales, premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2021, opening the festival's Midnight section. Its European premiere followed at Berlin International Film Festival. CENSOR earned Prano critical acclaim, a BAFTA Breakthrough recognition, and a Variety ‘Director to Watch' title. She won Screen International’s ‘Genre Rising Star Award’, was nominated for Breakthrough British Filmmaker at the London Critic’s Circle, and named one of the Observer’s ‘Faces of 2021’. CENSOR had its own cover feature in Sight & Sound, was BAFTA long-listed, and received nine BIFA nominations, including Best Debut Director and Best Debut Screenwriter. Produced by Helen Jones at Silver Salt Films, Executive Producers include Andy Starke, Ant Timpson and Kim Newman. 

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Read Prano's Sight & Sound interview with Mark Kermode here

The Independent - The story behind the best British horror film in years

 CENSOR 5 star review in The Guardian 

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Prano is currently developing multiple projects for film and television, including an adaptation of short story 'Things We Lost in the Fire' by Booker Prize nominated author Mariana Enriquez. The project is produced by RT Features and Anonymous Content, and co-written with Anthony Fletcher (CENSOR). Prano is also developing work with Film4, Element Pictures, Number 9 Films, Duck Soup and Ffilm Cymru Wales.

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Her acclaimed body of short films led to her selection as a Screen International ‘Star of Tomorrow'. Her work has screened at major festivals around the world, including BFI London Film Festival, Sitges, Melbourne International Film Festival, Tampere Film Festival, and the UKMVA's. Prano was selected for BFI Network@LFF 2017 which championed original voices, iconoclasts and risk takers, and is an alumna of the Berlin Talent Campus.

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Prano's short film NASTY screened at over 100 festivals globally, earning multiple awards. It's praised as "ultra stylish" (ESFF), "aesthetically gore-geous" (Love Horror) and that it "Pries your brain apart, and drags you through the luminous VHS gateway to revelation" (Fungasm Press). SHORTCUT, made as part of Film4's Fright Bites series, was broadcast on Film4 and is available to view on All4. SHORTCUT screened at festivals around Europe, the USA and Canada, and toured with The Final Girls' 'We Are The Weirdos' programme. THE TRIP won Best Director at Underwire Festival. Based on a real-life case study by ECPAT UK, THE TRIP has been used to educate police and other professionals in recognising victims of human trafficking. Her post-apocalyptic short MAN VS SAND, commissioned by The Letters Festival, Milan in association with London Short Film Festival, won Best Experimental Short at Aesthetica Short Film Festival, who described the short as "a powerful satire of the live-to-work ethic". 

 

Her music videos have won accolades including a UKMVA, Best Music Video at the European Independent Film Festival and Best Music Short at London Short Film Festival. Her work has been described as "effortlessly energetic and vibrant" (itsatrapfilms) and as having "enchanting vision" (video tape swap shop).

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Prano is a voting member of BAFTA and has sat on juries for BAFTA, IFTA, Locarno

Film Festival and BFI London Film Festival. She is also an award-winning editor, 

and has written articles for Sight & Sound, Empire Magazine and The Guardian.

 

She is represented by Casarotto Ramsay & Associates as

a writer-director and in the US at United Talent Agency.

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