SKY NEAL

Sky Neal is the founder and director of Satya Films, and is an award winning, BIFA nominated director, producer and visual ethnographer.  

Sky graduated from UEL (2004) with a first class degree in anthropology, and has a masters in Visual Anthropology from Goldsmiths  (with AHRC scholarship).  She also has a rich background in performing arts having studied at the Hub Theatre School in Cornwall, and spent 10 years working as a professional performer specialising in aerial arts. 

Her background in anthropology is central to her creative work, which often emerges from the intersection of anthropology, performance art and film.  She enjoys working experimentally and is particulariy interested in the body as a symbolic construct within its wider social and cultural context.

She loves telling human stories, and loves film for its power to transform, connect, liberate.  Her films resonate themes of  identity, self-expression, resistance, human rights, empowerment.

Her most recent work includes Daisy Chain for Guardian Documentaries, and she is a 2020 recipient of the John Braeburn Award.

In 2018 Sky was a featured artist at the V&A Museum as part of both V&A Lates and their performance festival. Both Even When I Fall  and Circus now: A glimpse into contemporary circus in the UK  were screened throughout the museum. 

Her BFI and Sundance backed, co-directed documentary, Even When I Fall, was theatrically released in 2018 screening in 45 cities nationwide, and is currently screening at festivals and events globally. It was nominated for a British Independent Film Award, Best Feature Documentary at One World Media Awards, Screen Awards Specialist Film Campaign, and won the Royal Anthropology Institute Audience Award. 

As a visual ethnographer, filmmaker and consultant Sky works regularly with research agencies, government bodies, charities, NGO's, educational institutions, museums and businesses globally. She is strongly motivated by human rights and has been working in the areas of modern slavery, child labour and migration for ten years. These issues resonate throughout her films  Nepal's Lost Circus Children (Al Jazeera English), Children at Work  (Series for BBC) and Even When I Fall.

Sky has worked extensively in Nepal since 2010. In particular she has combined her skills in visual research, performance and creative education to support several NGO's in setting up a performing arts-based rehabilitation programme for survivors of human trafficking,  and outreach and engagement programmes for at-risk communities. She now supports these projects through film and consultancy.

She is a voting member of the British Independent Film Awards and is a fellow of BFI Documentary Programme, Sundance Documentary Programme, Sheffield Doc/Fest Future Producer's School, BRITDOC's Good Pitch, Chicken and Egg Pics AlumNest.