Spotlight on... Edward Lawrenson

What is your role and what does it involve?

I’m a lecturer in Public Anthropology, and I teach mainly on the MFA in Creative Documentary by Practice. That’s a two-year practice-based course over which time the students make a number of non-fiction films, informed by various disciplines including, obviously, anthropology. Like so many of us in Public Anthropology, I’m also a practitioner, so the conceptual and academic guidance I offer the students is accompanied by experience of making films myself: what has worked, but also the mistakes you inevitably clock up over time. It’s all about getting the students to learn through the process of making, and creating an environment where they can share that experience with one another. A big part of the job is helping the students make the films they want to make. There’s no single way to do this, but listening to and cultivating the different and individual voice of the filmmaker as you shepherd them through all the stages of making a film is a key focus for me.

How long have you been at UCL and what was your previous role?

I’ve been working in Public Anthropology since 2020: before focusing on the MFA, I contributed to delivering the teaching on the MA in Ethnographic and Documentary Film. That’s a one-year course that sees students make three films, assisted by a studio lead, a support tutor, and a mentor – all roles I’ve done over the years.

What working achievement or initiative are you most proud of?

In terms of UCL work, it’s probably A Safer Place, a short film I made in collaboration with UCL’s Department of Risk and Disaster Reduction. I became fascinated in their research almost by accident – I used to pass their department offices on the way to my lectures – and I sent an email asking if they were working on anything that might be of interest. As it turned out, they were: a big research initiative with the Rohingya in a refugee camp in Bangladesh. So I went to Bangladesh with the lead researcher, Dr Bayes Ahmed, and shadowed his work, surveying some of the camp residents about their attitudes to landslide preparedness. The film was completed during Covid and wasn’t shown widely at festivals, but it did play at the end of a two-day conference on the Rohingya crisis held at UCL in 2020. That proved to be a very gratifying experience – one of those rare moments when you come to understand why you made a particular film – because it was the only moment during the conference where the voices of Rohingya refugees themselves were heard directly.

Tell us about a project you are working on now which is top of your to-do list

Right now, I’m completing a project called Hill Station. Its focus is a historic enclave of bungalows in Freetown, Sierra Leone, that were built in response to a report into malaria prevention made by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in 1899. These so-called ‘Houses for Europeans’ were situated on a remote hill away from the densely populated Freetown, to shield its residents from the breeding grounds of mosquitoes. I’ve made this with the architect and academic Killian O’Dochartaigh, and it’s an installation combining a two-channel film piece that I made and an architectural model. The exhibition is open now and runs until 16 November 2025 at RIBA North + Tate Liverpool. I’ve made work in the past that happened to play in galleries, but this is the first film I’ve expressly made for a gallery context. I’d also add that it grows out of a symposium I co-convened at UCL in 2021.

What is your favourite album, film and novel?

Asking a filmmaker to name their favourite film is a special kind of torment so I’ll use up my novel and album slots to give you three: Journey to Italy (Roberto Rossellini), The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel) and Close-Up (Abbas Kiarostami). And most recently, a film I’d recommend is The Typewriter and Other Headaches, an observational documentary by Nicholas Philibert about care workers coming into the houses of people with lived experience of mental illness to repair ordinary domestic items – it’s a beautifully simple and humane film.

What is your favourite joke (pre-watershed)?

Sorry: my memory is where jokes go to disappear.

Who would be your dream dinner guests?

I don’t need to dream them up – they are the close friends I already have, and see regularly for dinner.

What advice would you give your younger self?

Ignore advice from your elders.

What is your favourite place?

Right now, it’s the National Archive at Kew, where I spent time doing research for Hill Station.