Meet the Team

Cristina Roures

Festival Management Team

Cristina (she/her) works year-round with the Cambridge Film Trust, the charity behind the Cambridge Film Festival. She is the Festival Operations Manager since 2016 and one of three members of the Festival Management team, established in 2020. She works on festival strategy and planning, with specific responsibility for funding, partnerships, event management, volunteers & team coordination.

Her background is in film & TV production and large-scale events. She has previously worked with well-established production companies in Spain (Diagonal TV & Bambu Producciones) and as an events manager across sectors, including academia (with Anglia Ruskin University), sports (Formula 1, with Mediapro) and the arts (with Acting Now). She is also one of three directors of social theatre company Acting Now, based in Cambridge and Barcelona.

She has a BA in Audiovisual Communication from Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona) and an MA in Arts Management from Birkbeck University (London).

Originally from Catalonia (Spain), Cristina has lived and worked in the UK since 2013.

Espe Moreno

Festival Management Team

Espe (she/her) works year-round at the Cambridge Film Trust and the Cambridge Film Festival, being part of the Operations and the Festival Management team. She works alongside the team on various aspects, strategically focusing on development, grants, production, film acquisitions and content, hospitality and logistics.

Espe started her career on film at the Chicago Latino Film Festival, handling logistics, programme coordination, film acquisitions, content and marketing. She has also worked as the Digital Manager & Campaign Coordinator for the Human Rights Watch Film Festival (London and New York) and at the marketing and distribution company Together Films, coordinating impact campaigns for award-winning documentaries. In 2014, Espe co-founded youfeelm, the first to market Spanish theatrical on-demand platform, leading on communications, public affairs, film acquisitions, impact campaigns and strategies and HR. She has extensive international experience working for charities in several sectors, with a focus on advocacy work.

Espe has a BA in Journalism from Rey Juan Carlos University (Madrid), and she holds a Master of Journalism and a Master of International Relations from Monash University (Melbourne).

Owen Baker

Festival Management Team

Elle Haywood

Programming Panel Lead

Elle is a film curator and critic with a background in film, media and technology. She has already worked with the Festival in a number of different roles since 2017 and now returns to take a key position as our Programming Panel Lead. She has previously worked with the British Film Institute, the London Korean Film Festival, and Film Africa.

As a respected critic, Elle has written for Girls on Tops, Take One, Vague Visages, The Final Girls and Jumpcut Online, covering European and UK film festivals and online seasons.

She has a BA in Media Studies from Anglia Ruskin and an MA in Film Studies, Programming and Curation from the National Film and Television School. Her interests include Scandinavian, Feminist and LGBTQ+ cinema, independent filmmaking and multidisciplinary theoretical research. Elle is an Associate Lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University.

Savina Petkova

Programming Panel Lead

Savina Petkova is a freelance film critic based in London with bylines in MUBI Notebook, Little White Lies, Sight and Sound and Variety, among others. She is also part of the editorial board of the online magazine Talking Shorts and a workshop mentor for short film criticism. Savina is a member of the London Critic Circle, BIFA, the European Film Academy, and FIPRESCI and is completing her PhD at King's College London.

Amon Warmann

Programmer

AMON WARMANN has been a film and TV critic in the UK for the past decade and became a Contributing Editor and monthly columnist at Empire Magazine in late 2020. He is talkSPORT Radio’s weekly film reviewer, co-host of the Fade To Black podcast, and has written for Variety, British GQ, Daily Mirror, and Heat Magazine, amongst others. He also has numerous television appearances to his name across Sky Cinema, BBC News, and Channel 4.

Ramon Lamarca

Programmer and Catalan Film Specialist

Ramon started collaborating with the Cambridge Film Festival in 2012 and what was going to be a one-off collaboration became one on the longest strands of the Festival, Camera Catalonia. He is also involved with the rest of the programming for the festival and, when allowed, he likes to indulge in stereoscopic extravaganzas, like the popular event with Brian May some years ago. Ramon has also programmed Catalan cinema in other UK cinemas and organised numerous film and music events with orchestra in Spain.

Abigail Pollock

Submission Coordinator & Shorts Programmer

Hannah Hitchin

Hannah Hitchin - Outreach & Events Coordinator

Hannah Hitchin started as a volunteer for the Cambridge Film Festival in 2013 and has since worked in a variety of roles for the Festival, including Events, Marketing and Outreach. She also worked for many years at the Festival's host venue, the Arts Picturehouse, in customer service, projection and as a chef. She received her doctorate in Film and Television Studies in 2023 from the University of Warwick; her thesis focussed on British film in the 1960s and teen stardom. She also teaches the Business of Film at Warwick.

Becky Mann

Festival PR and Partnerships Manager

Becky Mann is an experienced freelance Festival PR and Partnerships Manager with a varied background in PR, communications, and business development spanning nearly three decades. Over the past 10 years, Becky has established herself as a key player in the region's festival scene, with a particular focus on events like the Cambridge Film Festival.

Becky's professional journey has taken her through various prestigious organisations. She previously worked with the Arts Council England, a governmental body that supports and funds arts and cultural activities across the country. Her ongoing work with the festivals run by the University of Cambridge, one of the world's most renowned academic institutions, further demonstrates her extensive experience in various professional contexts.

Cinema and film festivals hold a special place in Becky's career. During her student years, she worked at various cinemas, gaining valuable insights into the industry. An early stint at the London Film Festival also underscores her passion and commitment to the world of cinema and film festivals.

Meet the Trustees

Isabelle McNeill

Chair of Trustees - Film academic at Cambridge University

Dr Isabelle McNeill is Philomathia Fellow in French at Trinity Hall, where she has taught film studies and French literature since 2005. She is the author of Memory and the Moving Image: French Film in the Digital Era (Edinburgh University Press, 2010), as well as articles on film and its relations to memory, the city, home, tourism and Internet culture. She is finishing a book on the cinematic rooftops of Paris, which explores urban space and cultural history in relation to cinema. Her next book will be on female French filmmakers, and she is also involved in a collaborative project on creative and alternative approaches to academic work.

Tony Jones

Trustee - Cambridge Film Festival Director from 1981 to 2019

Tony Jones is the most significant figure in independent film exhibition in the East of England region. Besides pursuing a long and successful career establishing and programming art house world and independent cinema, he became involved with the Cambridge Film Festival in 1981 and ran it as Festival Director until 2019. Tony also founded the Cambridge Film Trust which delivers the festival.

Tony first became involved in cinema programming in 1968 when he founded the Arts Lab, an independent venue in Birmingham. Twelve years later, he became programming manager for the Arts Cinema in Market Passage, Cambridge, which he built up to become the UK's highest-grossing single-screen venue outside of London.

Alongside this, Tony co-founded City Screen Limited in 1989 with Lyn Goleby, beginning with conversion to 35mm on the Maltings Cinema in Ely and the purchase of the Phoenix Cinema in Oxford. They went on to open the Arts Picture House in St Andrews Street. City Screen has grown to become the leading independent cinema operator in the UK, owning 21 Picturehouse cinemas and providing programming and films for a further 37 venues. In December 2012, Cineworld purchased the Picturehouse chain for £47.3 million.

Even though film has become increasingly accessible in private contexts through specialist TV channels, DVD rentals and purchases, downloads and streaming to mobiles and tablets, Tony has continued to pioneer innovation and flair in public screening. He has taken our understanding of the screening space beyond the traditional black cube of the cinema auditorium and into the street, into stately homes, onto hotel rooftops, and into rural meadows.

Mike O'Brien

Trustee - Former civil servant. Long-time Festival supporter and community cinema programmer

Mike’s main career has been in administration within central government departments of the Civil Service, mainly working on business planning, good working practices, and staff development. His interest in mental health issues, based on personal experience, led a colleague and him to set up a staff mental health support group within Defra called Break the Stigma.

Mike helped set up and run a community cinema in the region, Screen St Ives, which he is proud to say programmed a diverse range of films, including foreign language, silent, documentary, animation, and British independent films. Mike has been a supporter of the Cambridge Film Festival for many years, which is why he feels particularly privileged to be a Trustee of an organisation which champions diversity in film and works hard to bring them to a diverse audience. He also set up the Herts Jazz Film Festival, which puts on jazz-related films at the same time as the prestigious Herts Jazz Festival.

Simon Jones

Trustee - Managing director at Studio 24

Simon is the Founder & Managing Director of Cambridge-based digital agency Studio 24. With two decades of experience in digital design and technology, he advises clients on how to be effective online and with his team of designers, technologists, and marketing experts, creates fantastic websites and web apps. He has been involved in several technology groups in Cambridge (Refresh Cambridge, PHP Cambridge), has volunteered at the Web Standards Project, speaks at various community and industry events, and was a school governor for four years.

Through this company, Studio 24, he has sponsored the Cambridge Film Festival since 2007, providing the digital presence for the festival. Since 2016, he has been a trustee of the Cambridge Film Trust, helping guide the charity with his business and digital technology expertise.

Simon is a firm believer in the power of the arts to improve people's lives and fully supports the Film Trust’s aim to reach a wide and diverse range of audiences.

Matthew Webb

Trustee - Career management consulting professional and artist

Matthew Webb is a career management consulting professional and artist specialising in sustainability, finance, technology and engagement with an MBA in finance, sustainability and change from the University of Durham and has exhibited his photographs in more than 30 gallery and museum solo shows. In 17 years, Webb has helped transform more than 30 leading organisations through more than 40 projects and programmes spanning healthcare, government and public sector, financial services, energy, media and telecommunications, and retail sectors and has received more than 250,000 visitors to his exhibitions.

"I have long held an interest in film and have attended many film festivals around the world whilst living in China, Russia and Brazil over the last twelve years and in the UK before then. From shorts to feature-length and documentary programming, I have seen a huge diversity of delivery and engagement over time and am delighted now to be helping Cambridge Film Trust reach new audiences."

Webb is also the Director of Photography for Panorama and Managing Trustee for the participatory photography charity Eyes of the Street/Olhares na Rua.