STÉPHANIE JOALLAND

Stéphanie is a writer-director. She runs Frenzy Films, a London-based production company which specializes in contained elevated genre films. 

Originally from France, she began her career in story development at TF1 International and Canal Plus. She then worked as a story editor and screenwriter for French TV, creating a Sci-Fi animated series for Luc Besson’s Europa Corp: VALERIAN & LAURELINE. 

After studying film at UCLA she wrote and directed her first feature film, THE QUIET HOUR, a sci-fi thriller starring Dakota Blue Richards (The Golden Compass, Skins, Endeavour). THE QUIET HOUR  premiered at Galway Film Fleadh, vied for Best British Film at Raindance and the Grand Prix at the Sofia International Film Festival, won Best Film at Kansas City Film Fest, showcased at Newport Beach, premiered on Sky Cinema in the UK in 2016 and sold to Amazon Prime in the U.S. 

Stéphanie is currently developing her second feature as a writer-director, ICE, a sci-fi thriller which won Best UK Project during the JETS Co-Production Initiative at Berlinale. ICE was also selected for the 2020 Sofia Meetings, Filmarket Hub's UK Online Pitchbox, BiFan's NAFF Project Event, and the Frontières co-production market at Fantasia. The script has also made the Top 50 in the 2020 ISA Fast Track Fellowship Competition in the U.S. and made the Finals of the 2020 Screencraft Sci-fi & Fantasy and Creative Screenwriting Unique Voices script competitions.

Stéphanie lectures on screenwriting and directing at the Central Film School in London and is an industry mentor on the Raindance MA in Filmmaking with De Montfort University. She also lectures on the MA in Screenwriting at U.A.L. (University of Arts London).

Stéphanie is an alumna of Berlinale Talent and IFP Emerging Narrative in NYC. She lives in London, UK, and is a member of Directors UK and the Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers (SACD) in France. A world traveler, she has lived in Norway, Canada, the U.S. and Germany before calling England home.

​Q: Who’s your favourite director?

A: Peter Weir, because he directed one of my favourite films ever, the haunting "Picnic at Hanging Rock" and because he's so versatile yet so consistently brilliant at what he does. 


Q: What’s the best opening in your opinion?

A: I am still under the spell of "Angel Heart"'s opening with the soul-stirring neo-noir atmosphere, probably because it was one of the first supernatural thrillers I ever watched and I had no idea what had just hit me when I saw it. 


Q: What’s the fictional journey you’d most like to take?

A: I'd like to be onboard of the spaceship of  Dan Simmons's  "Hyperion" towards a mysterious planet which reverses time. The spaceship of "2001: A Space Odyssey" would do as well.


Q: What’s the most memorable line of dialogue?

A: The dying replicant Roy Batty reflecting on his mortality, the tragedy of human experience beautifully encapsulated in a few lines.
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die".


Q: What’s your most romantic encounter in a film?

A: Donald Sutherland and Brooke Adams in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (the 1978 version of course). There is so much chemistry between them it's utterly devastating when she falls asleep and her body crumbles after he tries to wake her.

At Euroscript, Stéphanie regularly runs the 3 evenings course Write The Micro-Budget Feature