Charli Whatley

​​Charli is a queer, disabled and neurodiverse writer, director and poet. Her portfolio has screened internationally and she is a BAFTA Connect member.

 

As a writer, Charli’s neo-noir web-series Dirty Laundry (dir: Jason Bradbury) won Best British Pilot at Pilot Light Festival 2018, horror short Nightwalkers (dir: Jason Bradbury) screened at LSFF, ASVOFF9, FFFMilano and Copenhagen Fashion Film Festival, and art film Social Distortion (dir Stefano Ottaviano) premiered on Schön! Magazine. Her debut experimental short as writer/director, Period., premiered at ASFF 2018 and her 90 second doc Chronically Locked Down screened at Encounters as part of DepicT! and at LSFF 2021. Her two more recent shorts have moved her into narrative drama, Time and Saturday Roast (starring Kacey Ainsworth) and she directed a 60 second comedy horror, Burn The Patriarchy (written by Kirsty Smith and produced with other members of BAFTA Crew), which won an Outstanding Achievement Award at Berlin Flash Film Festival. 

 

In 2020 Charli was selected to be part of Penguin Books WriteNow scheme for underrepresented writers, and long-listed for their competitive year long mentorship scheme, with an extract from her queer coming of age novel The Middle. In 2021 Charli received a runner up prize for a short story competition run by Curtis Brown and attended one of their creative writing courses. In 2022 Charli’s concept for a feature film was long-listed for the DYSPLA Storymakers Residency. 

 

Commercially Charli has directed and edited a small portfolio of music videos with a particular love for the alternative scene, as well as documentary style content for a range of clients. Her poetry has featured in others work, including the #HereForCulture campaign film that played in cinemas across the UK in 2021. 

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Since becoming unwell, Charli started making music as a way to self soothe and channel some of the physical and emotional trauma that is created by a chronically sick body, turning it into something new and cathartic.