Carmen Thompson

Carmen is a film programmer, curator and cultural producer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. She works freelance and consultants across programming, audiences, festivals, training and development, funding and distribution, both in the UK and internationally.

Carmen currently works as Programming & Audience Manager for multi-award winning film exhibition & distribution company We Are Parable where she leads on nationwide and international projects, including the recent release of Cannes Competition title BANEL & ADAMA (Ramata-Toulaye Sy, 2023) in the UK and Ireland. She is also a Programme Consultant for a number of film festivals and industry markets, currently Sheffield DocFest, Red Sea Film Festival and Durban FilmMart.

She was previously a producer at international sales & distribution company Aya Films, working on the UK releases of films such as the award-winning THE GRAVEDIGGER’S WIFE (Khadar Ayderus Ahmed, 2021), RAFIKI (Wanuri Kahiu, 2018), SPRINTER (Storm Saulter, 2018) and THIS IS NOT A BURIAL, IT’S A RESURRECTION (Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, 2019). Aya Films also work across media education and in 2021 Carmen worked on the development of curatorial learning app Curate-It.

In her nearly 10 years in film exhibition and distribution, Carmen has worked with a range of organisations including European Film Market, AfroBerlin, Africa in Motion Film Festival (Co-director, 2020), Realness Institute, Wellcome, Scottish Documentary Institute, The Africa Channel, New Black Film Collective, Cinema Rediscovered and London Film School, and has recently served on film juries for BlackStar Film Festival, Cork International Film Festival and Leeds International Film Festival.

Carmen was recently voted one of Screen International’s Future Leaders, announced at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. She is also on the boards of Document Film Festival (as Chair) and Glasgow Film and is a voting member of BAFTA Scotland.