#133: Vicki Brown, Senior Executive of Sales & Distribution at BFI

Best Girl Grip

This week’s guest is Vicki Brown, the Senior Executive of Sales & Distribution at the BFI.

Before the BFI she was at Together Films where she was Head of Acquisitions, Sales and Distribution, a company that is one of the leaders in social impact entertainment. She was responsible for setting up the international sales department and oversaw the acquisition of In Camera the first feature from director Naqqash Khalid.

Prior to her arrival at Together Films, Vicki was the Director of International Sales at Altitude. At Altitude, she represented such diverse and critically acclaimed titles such as Rocks (by Sarah Gavron), Ali & Ava (by Clio Barnard), The Princess (by Ed Perkins), Calm With Horses (by Nick Rowland) and Diego Maradona (by Asif Kapadia).

Vicki has also previously worked at Focus Features International where she handled sales on numerous titles including Cloud Atlas and Moonrise Kingdom.

In addition, she seeks to champion under-represented voices in the film industry. Vicki is the co-founder (alongside former podcast guest Chi Thai) of MilkTea Films, an organisation which looks to shine a spotlight on East and Southeast Asian talent through screenings and events with a goal to building inclusion, communities and audiences. MilkTea was announced as a Film London Lodestar in 2023 and in 2022 and 2023, was nominated for a Big Screen Award.

All of which to say, Vicki is incredibly hardworking and a wonderful person to have in this industry, and therefore on this podcast. We talk about how she unearthed sales as the aspect of the film industry that she could be good at, what sales agents actually do, how she copes with the intensity of festivals and markets, working at Altitude when they were just starting out, how she knows when it’s time for a change, founding MilkTea and why that brings her joy, and what better East and Southeast Asian representation in cinema could look like.

SHOW NOTES

• Listen to Vicki's podcast 'Roll Credits'.
• Find out more about MilkTea Films and their upcoming events.
• Listen to my episode of Best Girl Grip with Chi Thai.
• Find out where to watch Celine Song's film Past Lives.