Debs Paterson

Debs Paterson is a film and TV director - recent credits including HALO (Amblin / Paramount+ / Showtime), WILLOW (LucasFilm / Disney+), THE BASTARD SON AND THE DEVIL HIMSELF (Imaginarium / Netflix). Debs was honoured with a best debut directing BIFA nomination and named a BAFTA Brit to when her first feature AFRICA UNITED was released (Pathé / BBC Films) in 2010. In 2017 she was the first female director on the action-heavy TV series STRIKE BACK, igniting a love of shooting character-led action. She was selected by JJ Abrams and Kathy Kennedy in 2018 to document the making of the final film in the STAR WARS trilogy of trilogies, spending a year with the production in Pinewood, on location and at Bad Robot in LA. Her documentary THE SKYWALKER LEGACY was listed by Slash Films among their best films of 2020 and is now streaming on Disney+. Debs was instrumental in creating BAFTA's Elevate programme - focussed on closing the hiring gap for female directors in high end TV. Elevate is now in its fourth cohort across various disciplines and has had tremendous success in pushing the needle in diverse hiring, thanks to the brilliant and tenacious Bafta team. Debs is passionate about big screen spectacle, and loves to subvert subconscious bias (particularly regarding gender and race) in her work. She also  occasionally writes screenplays. She is represented by Geoff Shaevitz at Entertainment360 and Ellen Jones and Wilhelmina Ross at CAA.