Ben Lankester - Narrative

have recently made DELIVERY, a 25-minute short film about a newly-qualified midwife undertaking the most physically and psychologically challenging night shift of her career on an understaffed and under-resourced NHS maternity ward. Co-produced by my partner Bophanie Lun through our company Kingdom Born and developed with and starring a practising midwife in the lead role, DELIVERY won Best Short Film at the British Short Film Awards and was nominated for Best British Short at the British Independent Film Awards. The film also picked up, among other prizes, Best Debut Short at Tirana International Film Festival, Best British Film at Norwich International Film Festival, Best UK Short at Manchester International Film Festival, Best British Director at the European Short Awards, Best Casting in a Short Film at the CDA Awards, the Jury Award for Best Drama and the Audience Award at This is England Film Festival, and two Golds and the coveted Grand Prix at the Kinsale Shark Awards. The short—which you can watch via Short of the Week—served as a proof of concept for my debut narrative feature, which is currently in development with Portobello Productions.

Previously, mine and Bophanie’s auto-fiction fundraising short ‘Who’s Counting?’—made in partnership with UK pregnancy charity Tommy’s—saw us channel our own experiences with miscarriage into an advocacy drama telling the story of a couple who have to endure the emotional and physical trauma of successive losses before they can receive support. The film—winner of Best Video Campaign and the Chair Award at The Drum Awards for Social Purpose, Best Short Film at Manchester Lift-Off Film Festival, Best Drama at the Performance Short Film Competition, recipient of a Silver at CICLOPE International Festival of Craft and a finalist at the British Short Film Awards—led to Tommy’s creating the ‘Record of Loss’, the first attempt to count the number of miscarriages in the UK.

My specialism working with actors to create truthful, intimate performance pieces continued in 2023 with a Christmas TVC campaign for Marie Curie. Elsewhere in commercials I have worked on international campaigns for brands as diverse as Jaguar Land Rover, Nespresso, LinkedIn and KitchenAid. My automotive and luxury product work includes ads for both TAG Heuer and Aston Martin, while my narrative TVC for Network Rail—central to the award-winning campaign ‘You vs. Train’—dramatised a real life case to create a moving depiction of the dangers faced by young people trespassing on the railway. The film is shown annually in schools across the UK and has amassed over 2.5 million views online.

In music, I have directed videos for unique British bands including Suede (Warner), The Magic Gang (Warner), and Hudson Taylor (Polydor), and acclaimed international acts such as Lang Lang (Decca) and Of Monsters And Men (Universal). My music documentary portfolio includes work for Converse and Bushmills Whiskey, with two live music programme directing credits for Channel 4—‘The Great Escape’ (2012) and ‘RockCorps Presents NCS’ (2013). Following a successful crowdfunding campaign, I co-directed the 2016 music documentary feature A DIVORCE BEFORE MARRIAGE which played at Warsaw, Leeds, Open City and Doc ‘n Roll Film Festivals, alongside a run at Bertha DocHouse through Curzon.

I also work as a Story and Edit Consultant across fiction and documentary features, most recently on the Emmy and Grierson Award nominee NAME ME LAWAND (2022).