Pinny Grylls
Documentaries . Fiction . Commercials . Ethnography
About
Pinny grew up in Hackney, East London and is an award-winning director, editor and ethnographer. In 2024 she won the BFI Chanel Filmmaker Award for her ‘audacious’ filmmaking in Grand Theft Hamlet - which she co-directed with Sam Crane. She and Sam are represented by Bard Dorros at Anonymous Content.
Pinny’s career began by co-founding Birds Eye View Film Festival. Since then her filmmaking has become known for it’s humour, authenticity and strong story telling.
She directs documentaries, commercials and is now moving into fiction. She is always experimenting with form - and her debut feature Grand Theft Hamlet co-directed with Sam Crane is shot entirely inside a computer game. In Jan 2023 their live Hamlet production in Grand Theft Auto won the Stage Innovation Award. Later the documentary about their crazy adventure staging the show won the Jury Best Feature Documentary at SXSW 2024, and screened at CPDox, Vision Du Reel and Hot Docs. It will be on general release in cinemas in the UK and US in Dec 2024 and on a streamer (TBA) in 2025.
Her films tend to focus on the uniquely human activity of performing - be it making theatre, singing or dancing.
Pinny is a proud member of the deaf community - and in 2022 she received BFI development funding for her debut fiction feature film Hear My Voice about a boy growing up in Hackney who dreams of being an opera singer while navigating his immigrant fathers hearing loss. The screen play is being written by Isaac Tomiczek.
Pinny is BSL level 2 and is passionate about making cinema more inclusive for the deaf and hard of hearing.
Pinny's avatar Rustless Zither interviews actors inside Grand Theft Auto
News….
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Grand Theft Hamlet wins SXSW best documentary feature award
Grand Theft Hamlet had it’s world premiere at SXSW Festival in March 2024 where it won the best documentary feature award. It had its European Premier at CPH:Dox in Copenhagen. It had glowing reviews in Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, IndieWire amongst others and 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. The film has been acquired by Altitude for sales an distribution.
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BFI awards Hear My Voice development funding
In 2022 the BFI awarded Hear My Voice their highly competitive Development Fund. The story was written in collaboration with Intermission Youth members supported by a kickstarter campaign. Now writer Issac Tomiczec will be creating a script ready for finance.
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Pinny Grylls wins 2024 BFI Chanel Filmmaker Award
This year’s three winners are Luna Carmoon (writer/director Hoard); Pinny Grylls (co-writer/co-director Grand Theft Hamlet) and Naqqash Khalid (writer/director In Camera).
The Jury said:
"Pinny Grylls, writer/director of Grand Theft Hamlet
“The sheer audacity of her unique approach to storytelling with Grand Theft Hamlet and having the talent to execute it so brilliantly, made Pinny the perfect recipient of this award.”