Laura Hastings Smith — Producer

Laura Hastings Smith is in post-production on The Ink Factory's The Little Drummer Girl, a six-part series for BBC and AMC, based on John Le Carré's novel of the same name. Hastings Smith's recent productions include the miniseries adaptation by Kenneth Lonergan of E.M. Forster's novel Howards End, in a Playground production for BBC1 and Starz; the comedy feature film Mindhorn, produced with Jack Arbuthnott at Scott Free Productions, written by and starring Julian Barratt (The Mighty Boosh) and Simon Farnaby (Paddington), directed by award-winning theater director Sean Foley. In the same year, Hastings Smith produced the TV movie The Last Dragonslayer, a Blueprint Pictures production for Sky TV that aired on Christmas Day, 2016. While previous work includes short-term projects (with director Romain Gavras at Iconoclast) as well as various feature film developments, Hastings Smith has produced a number of acclaimed feature films, including Justin Kurzel's Macbeth starring Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave) and Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose), produced with Iain Canning and Emile Sherman at See-Saw Films (The King's Speech, Shame). Macbeth premiered in Official Competition at Cannes and enjoyed a wide theatrical release to critical acclaim. Hastings Smith produced Steve McQueen's celebrated debut feature Hunger, starring Michael Fassbender, which won the Caméra d'Or on its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and over 50 other awards; the dramatic comedy X Plus Y, starring Asa Butterfield (Hugo), Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine) and Rafe Spall (I Give It a Year). For television, she produced the second series of the multi-award-winning Top Boy and the Warp Films production The Minor Character, written by Will Self and starring David Tennant for Sky Arts Playhouse Presents, which achieved record ratings. At Dazed Film & TV between 2000 and 2005, Hastings Smith produced a broad slate of innovative projects for TV, internet, mobile phone, live concert and theatrical platforms, from the short film Perfect (2003) and the multiplatform film project Stop For a Minute (2001) for Film4 to a spoof documentary, Gorillaz: Charts of Darkness (2001), featuring the cartoon band Gorillaz, plus their creators Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett, for Channel 4; and the feature film The Lives of the Saints (2006), written by Tony Grisoni. Before founding Dazed Film & TV with publishers Jefferson Hack and photographer Rankin, Hastings Smith was an established documentary director and producer of award-winning films including BBC Arena on Chi-Chi the Panda (1992).