Film maker Hannah received the support of the LEH Alumnae Emerging Talent Award to help with post-production costs of the award-winning film, Women Behind the Wheel. It has already played to packed cinemas in Edinburgh and London with more screenings across the UK now available.

The documentary tells the story of Hannah and her friend Cat who drove 3,000 km along the perilous Pamir Highway in Central Asia, on a mission to uncover women’s stories in a region far from home. But along the way, they’re forced to challenge many of the assumptions they set out with.

Hannah is a freelance filmmaker and TV producer whose work focuses on gender, politics, and mental health. She began her career working for the Berlinale, before creating her own films and current affairs programmes for the BBC, Channel 4 and ITV.  She was recently selected for the 2023 BIFA Springboard programme for first-time British filmmakers.

Hannah says: “We've come a very long way from where we started with this film. When we set out to make the documentary, we'd planned to make a short film following our journey along the Pamir Highway. We crowdfunded a small amount of money to pay for filming equipment, with the hope of documenting our experiences and the women we met along the way. But the access we gained was just remarkable.

“Women reached out to us through social media, both before and during our trip, and opened up about everything from masturbation and sexual empowerment to domestic abuse and bride kidnapping. The result is - we hope - a film that feels raw, authentic, and intimate.

“The LEH Emerging Talent Award came at a vital time in the editing process, allowing our editor to get us to our rough cut of the film. A couple of years later and we were finally finished! The premiere in Edinburgh was a surreal experience - it was such a joy to share the film with the public for the first time, and to have women from all walks of life talk about the ways in which the film moved them. We're about to set off on a tour of UK screenings and Q&As to raise the profile of the extraordinary grassroots female activists that feature in the documentary.”

To see the film’s trailer and the full list of screening dates and locations you can book, please visit Hannah’s website: Women Behind the Wheel (catandhan.wixsite.com). We urge you to show some LEH love and support her if you can.

If you are logged into your Holles Connect account, you can see the film poster and another image from the film below.