Joelle Mae David

Joelle Mae David was born and raised in East London; growing up in between the boroughs of Newham and Barking & Dagenham specifically.

While working as a production assistant, Joelle began creating short documentaries about local people, which became a short series called Hidden Talent, which featured on BBC3.

This then led to her being commissioned by BBC3 to create a short poetic documentary about how regeneration affects young people in the Gascoigne Estate in Barking called Losing My Home in The Name of Regeneration (2019). After making several short documentaries and films, Joelle used her experience to start Bluebird Pictures.

She released her first narrative short film; Greasy Spoon, a comedy-sci-fi about gentrification, in 2021. It was selected for BAFTA-qualifying festivals such as Aesthetica and London Short Film Festival and was nominated for the Hijack Visionary Award and the Taash Comedy in Film Award. Since 2021, she has directed a read-through of Sarah Keyworth‘s comedy Manbeast, directed the non-TX pilot Great Brittons (written by Ava Pickett) for Channel 4, directed two episodes of Dreaming Whilst Black, became the lead director of Channel 4’s Queenie, and written a pilot for Audible.