DirectorsDigest—Thursday20November2025

In the news this week, the winners for the 2025 BAFTA Scotland Awards have been announced, the BBC puts more than 80 employees at risk of redundancy across the product teams that help power online services, including iPlayer, and Action for Freelancers appoints James Taylor-Tovey as its new Project Director.

Read about it in this week‘s Digest.

News

•  The BBC has put more than 80 employees at risk of redundancy across the product teams that help power online services, including iPlayer. (Deadline)

•  TV freelancers’ group, Action for Freelancers, has appointed James Taylor-Tovey as its new Project Director. He will steer the next phase of the project, which aims to enhance TV freelancers’ working practices and improve conditions. (Televisual)

•  Annual revenues from UK TV exports have broken the £2bn mark for the first time, with sales into the US increasing by more than a third, according to latest Pact data. (Broadcast)

•  Christopher Nolan has used more than 2 million ft of film for The Odyssey, which has been entirely shot on the large-scale Imax format. (The Guardian)

•  Pope Leo XIV emphasised the importance of films in his speech in front of an audience of filmmakers, actors and executives at the Vatican: “The logic of algorithms tends to repeat what “works,” but art opens up what is possible.” (Deadline)

•  The leader of Reform UK Nigel Farage says the BBC’s remit should not extend beyond current affairs or its BBC World Service output, and vows to remove the licence fee if Reform UK were to gain power. (Broadcast)

Features

•   Sky's Chief Operating Officer, UK, Devesh Raj explores their five guiding principles for the UK’s AI copyright framework, and how AI and creativity can thrive together. (Sky)

•  Goldeneye at 30: How GoldenEye Revamped the Franchise. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Opinion

•   This year’s Oscars best director race could present one of the most globally inclusive, stylistically eclectic and generationally diverse lineups in modern Academy history, with contenders spanning horror, musicals, blockbusters and global dramas. (Variety)

Director Interviews

•   Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die director Gore Verbinski on AI: ‘‘It’s coming. It’s inevitable. I’m both apprehensive and excited, [but] it’s terrifying at the same time, and I think the title of our film is sort of a mantra right now. You can either ignore it, or you can be afraid of it, or you can surf it.’’ (Dexerto)

•  Kirk Jones, director of I Swear, reveals the genesis of his rousing film, inspired by the complex life of Scot John Davidson, an emblematic figure for Tourette syndrome. (Cineuropa)

Awards

•   The winners for the 2025 BAFTA Scotland Awards have been announced. Nora Fingscheidt wins Best Director: Fiction, and Matt Pinder takes home the award for Best Director: Factual. Congratulations to the winners across all categories! (BAFTA)