KATE STONEHILL

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Kate is an award-winning filmmaker whose work explores power and citizenship in the digital age. She is the director of the feature documentary Phantom Parrot, which unravels a secret U.K. government surveillance program and follows a human rights activist, as he is prosecuted under terror laws for refusing to hand over the passwords to his electronic devices. Supported by BFI Doc/Society, Tribeca Film Institute and Catapult Film Fund, Phantom Parrot premiered at CPH:DOX and Sheffield Doc/Fest, where it was labelled by programmers as “a must-see for anyone who cares about civil liberties in the digital age.” The film screened in the U.K. Houses of Parliament, was released in cinemas across the U.K, and was acquired by distribution label Tribeca Films for their inaugural slate.

Kate’s short films have screened at leading international film festivals, including the BFI London Film Festival, DOC NYC, Camden International Film Festival, and Hamptons International Film Festival, and been featured online on outlets such as The Atlantic Selects, Vimeo Staff Pick and Short of the Week. They include The Family Statement (co-directed with Grace Harper) for Field of Vision; the Grierson award nominated Mother (2020, co-directed with Jas Pitt), and the Grierson and RTS award-winning Fake News Fairytale (2018), which was included in the BFI season Born Digital: Raised by the Internet, and exhibited in a group show Digital Citizenship: The Precarious Subject at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art.

Alongside directing documentaries, Kate teaches filmmaking and works as a cinematographer. She has worked on films for Channel 4, Amazon Studios and VICE, and led workshops and courses at the National Film & Television School, the Royal Academy of Art in the Hague, and UCL, where she helped design the B.A. in Media. She is a mentor with Arts Emergency.