Introducing our Curatorial Trainees

We’re teaming up with the June Givanni PanAfrican Cinema Archive to deliver an 8-week traineeship in Pan-African Film and Archive Curation. We're excited to introduce our brilliant trainees...

Denise Amory-Reid (she/her)

I'm a Creative Producer exploring how creative technologies can bring historical moments back to life. This practice is deeply rooted in stewarding my late father's 30-year archive. Known as Big G, he documented Birmingham's Black cultural life from 1973 through the early 2000s - the city's hip hop evolution, Carnival across decades, PCRL Radio's golden era, and diasporic connections including St Kitts, St.Thomas, Jamaica and beyond.

My work bridges his analog documentation with digital innovation. Through The Fam'Ly Experience Sankofa, an R&D project, I'm testing how immersive tech and archival material can showcase Birmingham's Black artists across generations. A graduate of the New Producers Programme (Wolverhampton Arts Centre and China Plate), I've also contributed to The Glow of N'golo with AfroFlux Film Pardner and participated in the post-screening panel at Flatpack Festival.

This traineeship will teach me how to preserve my father's legacy and ensure communities can access and claim their history

Janet Nagudi (she/they)

Janet is a filmmaker, writer and artist whose work explores the Black British experience, the Birmingham creative space and how they intersect with the Pan-African identity. She’s previously worked in the Software Engineering industry which sparked her interest in the history of Afrofuturistic films and Pan-African Science Fiction, with the hopes of creating her own Afrofuturistic films and film events in the future.

Rene Francis-McBrearty (she/he/they)

I'm a multi-disciplinary artist, creative producer and aspiring city farmer passionate about researching community infrastructures which honour people, the seasons, the land and what we need. I'm looking forward to learning more about the legacies and resistance histories of Birmingham's community organisers, artists and filmmakers at JGPACA. Growing up some of my favourite life lessons came from watching action sci-fi films and tv dramas. Guided by the stories, textures and voices preserved within the archive, I'm excited to immerse myself in archival cinema and use film as a mirror and portal to learn lessons from the past to inform my present creative practice. While on this traineeship I hope to learn more about myself and Queer, Trans and Disabled Black histories.

JGPACA recognises the potential that exists to serve a larger and wider community of users, extending beyond its London-centred location and linking its PanAfrican networks regionally and to Africa, the Caribbean, the Americas and Europe. Importantly, JGPACA seeks to enable audiences and participants (communities) in the project to develop their cultural awareness, with a recognition of the complexities of Black identities.

This project is created with the support of the BFI Screen Heritage Fund, awarding National Lottery funding.