Owain Astles is a director based in Bristol & London. Owain’s work focuses around social impact, participatory filmmaking and visual activism and spans narrative, documentary and commercial. Owain is a member of
BAFTA Connect,
BFI NETWORK Shorts2Features and
BBC Arts.
Owain’s directing experience includes
Sleeping Rough, a participatory docudrama about street homelessness;
To My Younger Self, a BBC Arts-commissioned short about youth solitary confinement; and
The Hardest Fight of My Life, a short docudrama about boxing as a coping mechanism for depression. Most recently, Owain worked as a Participatory Director with
Inside Job Productions, co-creating
films with men in London prisons. Currently he is directing RIZE, a short film about homeless families living in temporary accommodation, in collaboration with
Shelter and
Hatch Films. He is also on
BFI NETWORK’s
Shorts2Features scheme, developing his first feature about three people impacted by the UK criminal justice system.
Owain has delivered
Homeless Action Week, an event involving people in Bristol’s homelessness community and
Cardboard Camp, a theatre partnership between
Cardboard Citizens and
Bristol Old Vic, working with people experiencing homelessness. In 2018 he gave a
TEDx talk, on his lived experience of homelessness.
