Leeds Beckett Lecturer Debuts Short Film Tackling Ageism and Female Visibility

Anita lectures in BA Filmmaking and MA Screenwriting at LBU's Northern Film School, and she's been practicing what she preaches recently by writing, producing and directing her first short film.

It's the latest success in a body of work spanning over 20 years and which includes helping to develop Spooks, writing on TV staples such as The Bill and Casualty, and co-creating The Cops, an award-winning drama for the BBC. It’s on that acclaimed show that she won a BAFTA for screenwriting.

Her first foray into features, Out of Service, is self-funded and will be showing in competition at the Women Over 50 Film Festival (WOFFF) later this year. It’s a festival that champions an issue that Anita has raised in a recent research paper, delivered at Falmouth’s Contemporary Women’s Writing Association Conference in 2025, on how important it is to tell stories by and about older women.

Starring the small-screen legend Sue Johnston, of Downton Abbey, Brookside and The Royle Family fame, alongside John Henshaw (Early Doors, The Cops), the film explores themes of ageism and female voices with humour and a light touch.

Anita said: "Research by the Geena Davis Institute indicates that statistically women over fifty are poorly represented on the screen and behind the camera. They suddenly find themselves becoming irrelevant and invisible. Yet this was a generation of women who broke the mould and fought for equal rights and pay. Equally, press and social media are promoting an intergenerational divide between Gen Z and Boomers. Writing and directing Out of Service was my attempt to rectify that imbalance. My upcoming feature film, Umbuntu, also deals with the same themes."

Discover more about the Northern Film School.