Film officers
Find out more about the film office team.
Hatty Frances Bell
Hatty joined RAI FILM in 2023. She is an anthropology evangelist, film director, curator and photographer. She earned her master’s in Visual Anthropology from Goldsmiths University College and went on to work as a self-shooting filmmaker, producer and photographer in industry for seven years.
Her practice is motivated by a will to use intimate, visual storytelling to advocate for social change. Hatty is interested in expanded documentary practice as a tool for growing empathy across cultures, shaking up media specificity, and adopting more radical approaches to documentary film as a contribution to transformative narratives.
Hatty is also on the board of directors for Stroud Film Festival. She is passionate about bringing independent cinema into the community and experimenting with new forms of engagement. In particular, using film as a tool to build community and precipitate discussion. Her work for the festival has previously been concerned with showcasing work by female and gender variant filmmakers whose films and writings explore practices of care, repair and solidarity.
Natalia Christofoletti Barrenha
Natalia is a film programmer, researcher, and cultural worker. She earned her PhD in Film Studies and also conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Campinas, and was a Visiting Fellow at KU Leuven, Comenius University, and the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. She is the author of several books and articles on Latin American cinema and women’s filmmaking.
She has organised film events for more than a decade and has contributed to festivals and institutions such as Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, BAFICI, CAIXA Cultural, Cervantes Institute, Institut Français du Royaume-Uni, London Short Film Festival, London Indian Film Festival, ICA, and The Garden Cinema, among others. She worked as a project manager and programme curator at the Cultural Section of the Embassy of Brazil in London, where she created the Helena Solberg Cineclub.
Natalia is also the co-founder of Cinema Mentiré, a film club promoting Latin American films in the UK, and is part of the programming team of the Jeden Svet International Documentary Film Festival in Slovakia. She joined RAI FILM in 2024.
Zeynep Kaserci
Zeynep is a programmer and researcher from Turkey with a background in anthropology and documentary production. Now based in London, she is part of the programming team at Sheffield DocFest and joined the RAI FILM Office in 2025.
She holds a master’s degree in Visual Anthropology from the University of Manchester, where her ethnographic research explored the intersection of embodied labor and gender in northeastern Turkey. As part of this work, she directed the short documentary Ocak, which was screened internationally at festivals and galleries, including the RAI Film Festival.
Previously, she worked at a non-profit NGO supporting emerging independent documentary filmmakers from Southwest Asia and North Africa, collaborating with filmmakers whose films premiered at world-renowned festivals such as Sundance, Berlinale, and DOC NYC.
As an artist-in-residence for the EU-funded project Alexandria: (Re)activating Common Urban Imaginaries, she investigated urban and social dynamics in Alexandria, Egypt, within the broader Mediterranean context. This research culminated in a publication and a touring exhibition showcased at MUCEM, Bozar, and Citadellarte.