Jeanie Finlay
Co-founder Glimmerama +
creative producer
Jeanie Finlay is a British documentary filmmaker and artist known for intimate, award-winning work that resonates globally. In 2026 she premiered her tenth feature film All Rivers Spill Their Stories to the Sea at CPH:DOX where it was nominated for the F:ACT AWARD. Her 2023 film Your Fat Friend had its world premiere at Tribeca Film Festival, its international premiere at Sheffield Doc Fest, where it won the audience award, followed by a pioneering, creative distribution path to audiences around the world.
She has made films for HBO, BBC, and IFC, including four for the acclaimed BBC Storyville strand including Bifa & Grierson nominated The Great Hip Hop Hoax and Bifa winning Orion: The Man Who Would Be King.
Whether inviting audiences to share the (extra)ordinary journey of a British transgender man, pregnant with his child (BIFA nominated Seahorse), behind the scenes of Teesside’s last record shop in her home town SOUND IT OUT, or onto the set of Game Of Thrones:in her Emmy nominated The Last Watch, her work is known for its emotional intimacy, pathos and humour and has garnered Emmy, BIFA, Grierson wins and nominations.
A champion of creative distribution, she’s a Chicken & Egg Awardee with retrospectives of her work at at Criterion, BFI, and MOMI NYC, True Story and Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. The recipient of an honorary Doctorate of arts in recognition of her contribution to documentary.
Jeanie is a member of the Academy (AMPAS) - Documentary Branch, of BAFTA and serves on the nominations committee for BIFA and is co-chair of the Documentary Subgroup.
In 2008 she founded production company Glimmer Films to develop and deliver ambitious, engaging and intimate documentary works, made in the region for international audiences. Glimmer strive for gender equity in front of and behind the camera, with all recent films made by a predominantly (over 70%) female and marginalised gender team.
Glimmer Films aim to: Creatively challenge the form of documentary. Celebrate the untold stories of people far from the spotlight. Further explore “wraparound filmmaking*” *; continuing a groundbreaking practice of engaging with audiences in innovative and meaningful ways throughout production, distribution and beyond.
Glimmer was named by Creative England and The Telegraph as one of the 50 most creative companies in England.
* a phrase coined by Dr Judith Aston to describe Glimmer’s pioneering approach to creative distribution
She is co-founder of Glimmer’s creative distribution arm Glimmerama with creative producer + head of business affairs, Suzanne Alizart.
Photo: Phil Sharp
“Jeanie Finlay is a terrific documentary maker. In whatever she does, she gets exactly the right amount of closeness and distance, she’s close enough to the subject that you feel intimate empathy but she’s far enough away that you don’t feel intrusive. ”
Photo: Jo Irvine
“British director Jeanie Finlay has an eye for an interesting human story and a knack for drawing the best from her subjects.”
“There are many wonderful moments in the films of Jeanie Finlay but my current favourite is in Seahorse, her intimate and profoundly moving film about Freddy McConnell. It’s simultaneously very funny and heartbreakingly sad, a moment that showcases Finlay’s unique sensitivity as a film-maker.”
MK3D at BFI Southbank, with Mark Kermode
“Seahorse is a film that has extraordinary access to its subject, and it is deeply empathetic. I found it very, very moving, and it made me cry, and as you know, I think that that’s one of the highest praises for any movie.”
“It’s not just a knack for digging up interesting stories that makes Finlay such an especially talented film maker... She locates heroism in the quotidian, among the overlooked. As such her films tend to (genuinely) transcend their apparent subjects to tackle bigger, more universal themes of what it means to be human.”
Photo: Jo Irvine
“Jeanie gives her projects time. She’s a serious, meticulous thinker”
“I love Jeanie Finlay’s work - I think I’ve seen everything she has made”
