Overview and Experience
Before Being a Breakthrough Leader
Assistant Producer
After cutting his teeth in development and production at leading indies such as The Garden, Raw, Rogan Productions and Passion Pictures, Beya set up his own company, Bellwether Pictures. Under Bellwether, he developed, pitched, produced and directed his directorial debut – The Detective and The Dog Thief (2022), which examines Britain’s pet theft epidemic, for Netflix. In the process becoming the streamer’s inaugural Documentary Talent Fund recipient. His projects use pop culture as an entry point to explore larger social issues in our world. They are known for being heavily stylized and blending both documentary and narrative aesthetics. More recently, for Rumpus, Beya produced a new, yet to be aired, Channel 4 docu-comedy in South Africa. Prior to his work in documentary, Beya trained as a journalist, gaining bylines for The Sunday Times, The Sun and The Guardian, before becoming the youngest journalist to produce an exclusive story for Sky News, which involved gaining access to the underbelly of Europe’s ‘money mule’ fraud networks. An alumnus of Channel 4’s Commissioning Mentoring Network, Beya is currently producing and directing an Amazon Prime limited series called Four Kings (W/T) for Workerbee, while continuing to independently develop new ideas for British and international markets.
Nominated by Bart Layton, Film maker
Beya Kabelu is a young creative whose ambition is only matched by his drive to get to the top of our industry. He has the rare combination of a creative head for development and story structure, a journalist’s skill for securing sensitive access and a producer’s approach to the practicalities of programme delivery.
Beya came to my attention after Joel Wilson, Eleven Film’s creative director, insisted that I meet a young man with a promising idea and enormous potential – and I was not disappointed. I met a bright guy, who came bearing a well-developed and clever idea for a series, along with exclusive access and an extremely well-written treatment. Beya is the kind of ambitious and entrepreneurial grafter we don’t see nearly enough of and he struck me as someone with solid commercial instincts who will without doubt go the distance.
Beya’s impressive CV includes working on Raw’s latest Netflix series, a film executive produced by Steve McQueen, which involved gaining access to the underbelly of Europe’s ‘money mule’ fraud scene and convincing three formerly abused adults to speak about their childhood trauma for the first time.
Beya’s aim is to produce and direct documentaries and drama that are socially conscious, visually captivating and portray a sense of humanity, humour and warmth, while tackling controversial and challenging subject matter with tremendous visual style and journalistic rigour. **
Beya, who mentors three boys from diverse backgrounds, has already exhibited early leadership capability through his outreach work, which sees him speak to children from his former school. After I discussed with him the work I do with Raw, Beya volunteered to help me with my quest to further diversify the TV industry and has valuable thoughts on how to best reach those rarely enticed into TV work.
All of this to say that I am confident that an investment in Beya through an opportunity such as this will be an incredibly sound one!
