Biography
Katherine Press is a director, actor, writer and producer. Her first project as Writer/Director, HELP! I'VE STOLEN AMY ADAMS' NOSE!, starring Michael Maloney, was completed in January 2022. It was selected to screen at Bristol's Watershed Cinema as part of their upcoming filmmaker showcase, and won Best Comedy at its first festival and Best Low Budget Film at its second. It has gone on to win both British Comedy Guide Pro’s Production Award, and the Audience Choice Award at Exit 6 Film Festival, plus multiple other Best Comedy and Best Actress awards, to be nominated for Best Comedy, Best Director and Best Comedic Performance at Deep in the Heart Film Festival, shortlisted for Performance Film & Media’s Short Film Competition, and to be selected for BIFA-qualifying The Shortest Nights and Sunderland Shorts, amongst others. Her next film, REACHING FOUR, starring Ben Lamb and Pippa Haywood, and supported by OCD UK, premiered in New York in June 2022 (Peekskill Film Festival) and won Best Drama at Anatolia International Film Festival. Her latest completed project, BEST OF THREE, won the Talkies Short Film Commission and was shortlisted for the 2023 Funny Women Awards. Her film collaboration with Josh Elwell (Lead Puppeteer, Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared, Jim Henson Company, Dr Who), starring Vincent Franklin and Sarah Keyworth, reached the Finals of the prestigious The Pitch Film Fund 2023 and is currently in post production.
Whilst still a student, Katherine's first producing project was shortlisted for the Grierson Awards, and her next, A Noble Truth, was financed by the BFI Short Film Fund. In 2018 she was selected as an Emerging Producer by BFI Network, and invited to their 2019 Producer Lab. Since then, her productions have been longlisted for the BIFAs, screened at Oscar, BAFTA and BIFA-qualifying festivals including LSFF, Brussels, Encounters and Aesthetica, and have been supported by charities including the Samaritans.
Born in Bristol, Katherine left home aged 16 to attend professional ballet school in London, graduating aged 19 with a BA in Dance Performance. Subsequently studying for a BA in History of Art at the University of Cambridge, she was spotted by an agent and started acting professionally, with roles ranging from classic British television to Marvel movies and West End theatre.
Prestigious voice work followed: Margaret Atwood's Booker Prize-winning sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, The Testaments, for BBC Radio 4's Book at Bedtime; the Unabridged Jane Eyre for BBC Classic Stories; and the Costa Children's Book Award-winning The Skylarks' War (Pan Macmillan).
Curious about life on the other side of the camera, in 2017 Katherine took an MA in Film & Television at Falmouth University, during which time she was a winner of the University Women in the Arts mentoring scheme, supported by the Women of the Future Programme. Her first screenplay, The Screening, was shortlisted for the BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Competition, and she was recruited to work for John Yorke (ex-Controller of BBC Drama, MD of Company Pictures, and Head of Drama at Channel 4) at his screenwriting company, John Yorke Story.
Katherine is a returning member of the BAFTA Crew talent programme, and a BAFTA and BFI Film Academy Mentor. She is currently being mentored by Johnny Fewings, former MD of Universal Pictures.
