Grain Media adds Samphire and HiddenLight execs

Grain Media has made a double hire for its growing London-based development hub Grace Labs, Broadcast can reveal. 

Joe Fowler, head of development at nascent indie Samphire Films, and HiddenLight development exec Katharine Fish have each been respectively appointed in the same roles at Grace Labs.

Founded and run by documentary filmmaker Orlando von Einsiedel, Grain Media is behind titles including Netflix’s Emmy winner Buy Now! The Shopping Conspiracy, Oscar winner The White Helmets, and The Lost Children and BBC doc Death in Bollywood.

Grace Labs is a philanthropic venture, established by Grain and the Grace Fund to develop ideas which go on to be produced by Grain. It was originally designed to create ideas about the climate crisis but now has the broader remit to make ideas that service a social purpose. Last year, Grace Labs announced a recruitment drive to accommodate its expanded remit.

Fowler and Fish’s appointments aim to expand Grain’s global output of feature documentaries and series, as well as secure fresh partnerships and collaborations.

Before becoming the third employee at Sophie Leonard and David Hodgkinson’s BBC Studios-backed Samphire last year, Fowler was head of factual development at Expectation TV.

His development credits include Sky Documentaries The Essex Murders and Who Killed Goldfinger?, BBC2’s Murder 24/7 and Hell Jumper and Channel 4’s Miriam: Death of a Reality Star and he has worked at indies including Blast! Films, Century Films, Twofour and Twenty Twenty.

Fish has spent four years at HiddenLight with development credits including Kursk: 10 Days that Shaped Putin for Sky Documentaries, The Cranes Call (Channel 4) and Zurawski v Texas, which was executive produced by Jennifer Lawrence.

She previously worked at Sundog Pictures on C4’s Teachers Training to Kill and What’s the Matter with Tony Slattery, and Five Mile Films where she helped create Paddy Wivell’s The Pandemic at No. 47.

Grace Labs is led by creative director Chloe Leland, who said: “Joe and Katharine are development gems, and we feel incredibly lucky to be welcoming them to the team.

“They embody Grain’s commitment to creating boldly and telling big, important stories. Plus, their deep care for the projects they nurture, coupled with a sharp instinct for compelling narratives, makes them masters at thoughtfully and sensitively securing the challenging access and distinctive IP that define Grain’s work.”

Von Einsiedel added: “It’s a very exciting time for our team. We’ve got a lot in the pipeline and having Joe and Katherine’s exceptional talents under our roof will further strengthen our ability to create captivating, wide-reaching, and socially impactful films.”

Grain’s upcoming projects include the feature documentary The Cycle of Love, following an Indian artist who set out on an adventure by bicycle from India to Sweden for the love of a woma and a slate of currently under-wraps series and features.