Sam was born and grew up in Walthamstow, East London. The child of non-conformist hippy scientists she was always an odd one out at school.
She was offered a place at Camberwell Art College but decided narrative was even less fathomable than art, so studied literature at Kent University instead. She went on to work for several years at the London and Edinburgh Film Festivals with the ulterior motive of finding out how art house films work and failed. She then briefly worked as a development executive for Phil Hunt at Open Road Films where she assistant produced the cult feature film Chunky Monkey.
This experience was so traumatic she promptly went back into script development and became a freelance script reader and editor working for a number of folk including Film Four, UKFC, Helkon and Cowboy Films .
Still in pursuit of narrative she left London to study an MA in Screenwriting at the Northern Film School. Her graduation script was selected for North by Northwest, The Berlin Talent Campus and received development funds from Screen Yorkshire but never went into production so Sam went into hiding in the highlands of Scotland bought a Sony Z1 and eventually started making her own films. I.D. her first film won awards around the world.
She is still in hot pursuit of narrative.
Sam’s work explores the way we create narratives out of our lives and how our personal stories relate to wider culture. She is interested in the distinction between documenting and story telling and the relationship between art, creativiy and scientific ideas.
Sam also leads film projects with community groups and has won awards for her work with primary school children.
She has lived in Knoydart on the north west coast of Scotland for the last five years.
